Exploration of high-density protein microarrays for antibody validation and autoimmunity profiling

N Biotechnol. 2016 Sep 25;33(5 Pt A):582-92. doi: 10.1016/j.nbt.2015.09.002. Epub 2015 Sep 28.

Abstract

High-density protein microarrays of recombinant human protein fragments, representing 12,412 unique Ensembl Gene IDs, have here been produced and explored. These protein microarrays were used to analyse antibody off-target interactions, as well as for profiling the human autoantibody repertoire in plasma against the antigens represented by the protein fragments. Affinity-purified polyclonal antibodies produced within the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) were analysed on microarrays of three different sizes, ranging from 384 antigens to 21,120 antigens, for evaluation of the antibody validation criteria in the HPA. Plasma samples from secondary progressive multiple sclerosis patients were also screened in order to explore the feasibility of these arrays for broad-scale profiling of autoantibody reactivity. Furthermore, analysis on these near proteome-wide microarrays was complemented with analysis on HuProt™ Human Proteome protein microarrays. The HPA recombinant protein microarray with 21,120 antigens and the HuProt™ Human Proteome protein microarray are currently the largest protein microarray platforms available to date. The results on these arrays show that the Human Protein Atlas antibodies have few off-target interactions if the antibody validation criteria are kept stringent and demonstrate that the HPA-produced high-density recombinant protein fragment microarrays allow for a high-throughput analysis of plasma for identification of possible autoantibody targets in the context of various autoimmune conditions.

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Autoantibodies / blood*
  • Autoantigens / genetics
  • Autoantigens / immunology
  • Autoimmunity
  • Biotechnology
  • High-Throughput Screening Assays
  • Humans
  • Multiple Sclerosis, Chronic Progressive / immunology
  • Peptide Fragments / genetics
  • Peptide Fragments / immunology
  • Peptide Library
  • Protein Array Analysis / methods*
  • Recombinant Proteins / genetics
  • Recombinant Proteins / immunology

Substances

  • Autoantibodies
  • Autoantigens
  • Peptide Fragments
  • Peptide Library
  • Recombinant Proteins