The quantitative proteome of a human cell line

• Published in: Molecular systems biology Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 549 - n/a
• Main Authors: Beck, Martin, Schmidt, Alexander, Malmstroem, Johan, Claassen, Manfred, Ori, Alessandro, Szymborska, Anna, Herzog, Franz, Rinner, Oliver, Ellenberg, Jan, Aebersold, Ruedi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.11.2011; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; EMBO Press; Nature Publishing Group; Springer Nature
• Subjects: Basic Medicine; Biological activity; Biological models (mathematics); Biology; Cell Line, Tumor; Computer simulation; Datasets; EMBO31; Experiments; Fractionation; Gene Expression Profiling; Humans; Immunologi inom det medicinska området; Immunology in the medical area; Mammals; Mass Spectrometry; Mathematical models; Medical and Health Sciences; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Medicinska och farmaceutiska grundvetenskaper; Mitosis; Peptides; protein abundance; Proteins; Proteome - genetics; Proteome - metabolism; Proteomes; Proteomics; Proteomics - methods; Systems Biology - methods; protein abundance; proteomics; mass spectrometry
• ISSN: 1744-4292; 1744-4292
• DOI: 10.1038/msb.2011.82

The generation of mathematical models of biological processes, the simulation of these processes under different conditions, and the comparison and integration of multiple data sets are explicit goals of systems biology that require the knowledge of the absolute quantity of the system's components. To date, systematic estimates of cellular protein concentrations have been exceptionally scarce. Here, we provide a quantitative description of the proteome of a commonly used human cell line in two functional states, interphase and mitosis. We show that these human cultured cells express at least ∼10 000 proteins and that the quantified proteins span a concentration range of seven orders of magnitude up to 20 000 000 copies per cell. We discuss how protein abundance is linked to function and evolution. The majority of all proteins expressed in the human osteosarcoma cell line U2OS were absolutely quantified by mass spectrometry. The quantified proteins span a concentration range of seven orders of magnitude up to 20 000 000 copies per cell.