URIMEM, will facilitate biomarker discovery and change

the face of medicine

高友鹤YOUHE GAO

Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences

Advantages of Urine Proteome

• Non-invasive• Simpler than plasma• Reflects changes of plasma• Close to kidney and prostate

Urine Proteome Studies

before 2000

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20130

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PUBMED

PUBMED

Disadvantages

• Big variation• Need more cases to validate

Urine: may even better than blood for biomarker study

• Urine– Suppose to be waste– Changes were

maintained if not amplified

• Blood– Suppose to be

homeostatic– Changes were minimized

Problems

• More sample• Higher throughput MS• More analyzing power

Problems to save samples

• Very diluted• Protein degradation

Possible ways to save

• Precipitate: organic solvent consuming • Freeze dry: energy and labor consuming• Extraction: cost• Not suitable for large numbers of samples

((

Urimem

UrimemUrinary proteins

dried on a filter and stored in vacuum

Why is that important?

Changed the face of medicine

• “Hard as it is to believe today, a single concept developed by Dr. Henry Plummer (1874 – 1936) at the beginning of the 20th century changed the face of medicine.”

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tradition-heritage/medical-records.html

Changed the face of medicine

• The concept was a centralized medical record, stored in a single repository, and capable of traveling with the patient. (1907)

• Now– paperless – filmless – chartless

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tradition-heritage/medical-records.html

Biobanking: foundation of personalized medicine

• Blood• Urine• Skin cells• Organ• Tissue• other things taken from a body

Hewitt RE. Curr Opin Oncol. 2011 Jan;23(1):112-9. doi: 10.1097/CCO.0b013e32834161b8.

Do we have enough? Why not?

• Invasiveness• Storage expense• Limited biological information (hair, nail)

URIMEM is the answer

• Invasiveness: You can’t hold your urine for a few hours.

• Storage expense: Proteins dried on a membrane can be stored in vacuum even at room temperature for quite a while.

• Limited biological information: much more complicated information from the whole body especially from the secretory system

Can we decode urine proteome?

• Not yet• But having large number of samples will help

Acknowledgement• Lulu Jia• Xuejiao Liu• Liu Liu

• Youhe Gao 高友鹤 • gaoyouhe@pumc.edu.cn• 13910861559

• Department of Nephrology, PUMC Hospital: Mingxi Li

• Funding from 973 Project