A comparison of selected mRNA and protein abundances in human liver

TLDR

The study estimates the overall correlation between mRNA and protein abundances in human liver using quantitative 2‑D electrophoresis and Transcript Image analysis. Human liver samples were profiled by 2‑D electrophoresis for proteins and Transcript Image for mRNAs; EST sequences from Incyte LifeSeq were matched to 23 proteins, yielding abundance estimates for 19 messages, and the data were compared to published liver mRNA abundance studies. A moderate correlation (r = 0.48) between mRNA and protein levels suggests frequent post‑transcriptional regulation, and the top 50 mRNAs were largely secreted proteins while the top 50 proteins were not secreted, indicating a disconnect between transcript and protein abundance.

Abstract

Abstract In order to obtain an estimate of the overall level of correlation between mRNA and protein abundances for a well‐characterized pharmaceutically relevant biological system, we have analyzed human liver by quantitative two‐dimensional electrophoresis (for protein abundances) and by Transcript Image methodology (for mRNA abundances). Incyte's LifeSeq™ database was searched for expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences corresponding to a series of 23 proteins identified on 2‐D maps in the Large Scale Biology (LSB) Molecular Anatomy™ database, resulting in estimated abundances for 19 messages (4 were undetected) among 7926 liver clones sequenced. A correlation coefficient of 0.48 was obtained between the mRNA and protein abundances determined by the two approaches, suggesting that post‐transcriptional regulation of gene expression is a frequent phenomenon in higher organisms. A comparison with published data (Kawamoto, S., et al. , Gene 1996, 174 , 151–158) on the abundances of liver mRNAs for plasma proteins (secreted by the liver) suggests that higher abundance messages are strongly enriched in secreted sequences. Our data confirms this: of the 50 most abundant liver mRNAs, 29 coded for secreted proteins, while none of the 50 most abundant proteins appeared to be secreted products (although four plasma and red blood cell proteins were presents in this group as contaminants from tissue blood).