Toponome mapping in prostate cancer: detection of 2000 cell surface protein clusters in a single tissue section and cell type specific annotation by using a three symbol code.

The toponome imaging technology MELC/TIS was applied to analyze prostate cancer tissue. By cyclical imaging procedures, we detected 2100 cell surface protein clusters in a single tissue section. This study provides the whole data set, a new kind of high dimensional data space, solely based on the structure-bound architecture of an in situ protein network, a putative fraction of the tissue code of prostate cancer. It is visualized as a colored mosaic composed of distinct protein clusters, together forming a motif expressed exclusively on the cell surface of neoplastic cells in prostate acini. Cell type specific expression of this motif, found in this preliminary study, suggests that high-throughput toponome analyses of a larger number of cases will provide insight into disease specific protein networks.