While spatial proteomics by fluorescence imaging has quickly become an essential discovery tool for researchers, fast and scalable methods to classify and embed single-cell protein distributions in such images are lacking. Here, we present the design and analysis of the results from the competition Human Protein Atlas – Single-Cell Classification hosted on the Kaggle platform. This represents a crowd-sourced competition to develop machine learning models trained on limited annotations to label single-cell protein patterns in fluorescent images. The particular challenges of this competition include class imbalance, weak labels and multi-label classification, prompting competitors to apply a wide range of approaches in their solutions. The winning models serve as the first subcellular omics tools that can annotate single-cell locations, extract single-cell features and capture cellular dynamics. 

Spatial and temporal variations among individual human cell proteomes are comprehensively mapped across the cell cycle using proteomic imaging and transcriptomics. The cell cycle, over which cells grow and divide, is a fundamental process of life. Its dysregulation has devastating consequences, including cancer(1-3). The cell cycle is driven by precise regulation of proteins in time and space, which creates variability between individual proliferating cells. To our knowledge, no systematic investigations of such cell-to-cell proteomic variability exist. Here we present a comprehensive, spatiotemporal map of human proteomic heterogeneity by integrating proteomics at subcellular resolution with single-cell transcriptomics and precise temporal measurements of individual cells in the cell cycle. We show that around one-fifth of the human proteome displays cell-to-cell variability, identify hundreds of proteins with previously unknown associations with mitosis and the cell cycle, and provide evidence that several of these proteins have oncogenic functions. Our results show that cell cycle progression explains less than half of all cell-to-cell variability, and that most cycling proteins are regulated post-translationally, rather than by transcriptomic cycling. These proteins are disproportionately phosphorylated by kinases that regulate cell fate, whereas non-cycling proteins that vary between cells are more likely to be modified by kinases that regulate metabolism. This spatially resolved proteomic map of the cell cycle is integrated into the Human Protein Atlas and will serve as a resource for accelerating molecular studies of the human cell cycle and cell proliferation.

The nucleolus is essential for ribosome biogenesis and is involved in many other cellular functions. We performed a systematic spatiotemporal dissection of the human nucleolar proteome using confocal microscopy. In total, 1,318 nucleolar proteins were identified; 287 were localized to fibrillar components, and 157 were enriched along the nucleoplasmic border, indicating a potential fourth nucleolar subcompartment: the nucleoli rim. We found 65 nucleolar proteins (36 uncharacterized) to relocate to the chromosomal periphery during mitosis. Interestingly, we observed temporal partitioning into two recruitment phenotypes: early (prometaphase) and late (after metaphase), suggesting phase-specific functions. We further show that the expression ofMKI67 is critical for this temporal partitioning. We provide the first proteome-wide analysis of intrinsic protein disorder for the human nucleolus and show that nucleolar proteins in general, and mitotic chromosome proteins in particular, have significantly higher intrinsic disorder level compared to cytosolic proteins. In summary, this study provides a comprehensive and essential resource of spatiotemporal expression data for the nucleolar proteome as part of the Human Protein Atlas.

After a century of research, the human centrosome continues to fascinate. Based on immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy, an extensive inventory of the protein components of the human centrosome, and the centriolar satellites, with the important contribution of over 300 novel proteins localizing to these compartments is presented. A network of candidate centrosome proteins involved in ubiquitination, including six interaction partners of the Kelch-like protein 21, and an additional network of protein phosphatases, together supporting the suggested role of the centrosome as an interactive hub for cell signaling, is identified. Analysis of multi-localization across cellular organelles analyzed within the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) project shows how multi-localizing proteins are particularly overrepresented in centriolar satellites, supporting the dynamic nature and wide range of functions for this compartment. In summary, the spatial dissection of the human centrosome and centriolar satellites described here provides a comprehensive knowledgebase for further exploration of their proteomes.

Characterizing the molecular components of the basic unit of life; the cell, is crucial for a complete understanding of human biology. The cell is divided into compartments to create a suitable environment for the resident proteins to fulfill their functions. Therefore, spatial mapping of the human proteome is essential to understand protein function in health and disease.

Spatial proteomics is most commonly investigated using mass spectrometry or imaging, combined with machine learning for the data analysis. Until now, studies have been limited to high abundant proteins and relied on the purification of organelle fractions from a bulk of cells. Within the scope of this thesis, we were able to systematically localize proteins in their native cellular environment using antibody-based imaging techniques, and to investigate protein subcellular localization and dynamics on a single cell level, introducing a major advance within the field of spatial proteomics.

Paper I of this thesis presents a subcellular map of the human proteome, where the spatial distribution of 12,003 human proteins was mapped into 30 subcellular structures, half of which were not previously localized. Besides providing a valuable dataset for cell biology, this study is the first to reveal the spatial complexity of human cells with proteins localizing to multiple compartments and pronounced single cell variations. Paper II reports on the systematic temporal dissection of these single cell variations and the identification of cell cycle correlated variations. We identified 258 novel cell cycle regulated proteins and showed that several of these proteins may be connected to proliferative diseases. A key finding of Paper II is that proteins showing non-cell cycle dependent variations are significantly enriched in mitochondria, whereas cell cycle dependent proteins are enriched in nucleoli. In Paper III and IV, we spatiotemporally characterized the proteomes of these two organelles, mitochondria and nucleoli, in greater detail.

In Paper III, we expanded the mitochondrial proteome with 560 novel proteins. As many as 20% of the mitochondrial proteome showed variations in their expression pattern at the single cell level, most often independent of the cell cycle. Paper IV provides a complete characterization of the nucleolar proteome. Nucleoli are not only important for ribosome synthesis and assembly, but are also crucial for cell cycle regulation through the recruitment of its proteins to the chromosomal periphery during cell division. Here, we presented the first proteome-wide spatiotemporal analysis of the nucleolus with its sub-compartments, and identified 69 nucleolar proteins that relocated to the chromosomes periphery during mitosis.

In conclusion, this thesis unravels the spatiotemporal proteome organization of the human cell over the course of a cell cycle and offers a valuable starting point for a better understanding of human cell biology in health and disease.

The proteins secreted by human cells (collectively referred to as the secretome) are important not only for the basic understanding of human biology but also for the identification of potential targets for future diagnostics and therapies. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of proteins predicted to be secreted in human cells, which provides information about their final localization in the human body, including the proteins actively secreted to peripheral blood. The analysis suggests that a large number of the proteins of the secretome are not secreted out of the cell, but instead are retained intracellularly, whereas another large group of proteins were identified that are predicted to be retained locally at the tissue of expression and not secreted into the blood. Proteins detected in the human blood by mass spectrometry-based proteomics and antibody-based immuno-assays are also presented with estimates of their concentrations in the blood. The results are presented in an updated version 19 of the Human Protein Atlas in which each gene encoding a secretome protein is annotated to provide an open-access knowledge resource of the human secretome, including body-wide expression data, spatial localization data down to the single-cell and subcellular levels, and data about the presence of proteins that are detectable in the blood.

Resolving the spatial distribution of the human proteome at a subcellular level can greatly increase our understanding of human biology and disease. Here we present a comprehensive image-based map of subcellular protein distribution, the Cell Atlas, built by integrating transcriptomics and antibody-based immunofluorescence microscopy with validation by mass spectrometry. Mapping the in situ localization of 12,003 human proteins at a single-cell level to 30 subcellular structures enabled the definition of the proteomes of 13 major organelles. Exploration of the proteomes revealed single-cell variations in abundance or spatial distribution and localization of about half of the proteins to multiple compartments. This subcellular map can be used to refine existing protein-protein interaction networks and provides an important resource to deconvolute the highly complex architecture of the human cell.