Overview of transcriptomic analysis of all human proteases, non-proteolytic homologs and inhibitors: Organ, tissue and ovarian cancer cell line expression profiling of the human protease degradome by the CLIP-CHIP™ DNA microarray.

The protease degradome is defined as the complete repertoire of proteases and inhibitors, and their nonfunctional homologs present in a cell, tissue or organism at any given time. We review the tissue distribution of virtually the entire degradome in 23 different human tissues and 6 ovarian cancer cell lines. To do so, we developed the CLIP-CHIP™, a custom microarray based on a 70-mer oligonucleotide platform, to specifically profile the transcripts of the entire repertoire of 473 active human proteases, 156 protease inhibitors and 92 non-proteolytically active homologs known at the design date using one specific 70-mer oligonucleotide per transcript. Using the CLIP-CHIP™ we mapped the expression profile of proteases and their inhibitors in 23 different human tissues and 6 ovarian cancer cell lines in 104 sample datasets. Hierarchical cluster analysis showed that expression profiles clustered according to their anatomic locations, cellular composition, physiologic functions, and the germ layer from which they are derived. The human ovarian cancer cell lines cluster according to malignant grade. 110 proteases and 42 inhibitors were tissue specific (1 to 3 tissues). Of these 110 proteases 69% (74) are mainly extracellular, 30% (34) intracellular and 1% intramembrane. Notably, 35% (197/565) of human proteases and 30% (47/156) of inhibitors were ubiquitously expressed in all 23 tissues; 27% (155) of proteases and 21% (32) of inhibitors were broadly expressed in 4-20 tissues. Our datasets provide a valuable resource for the community of baseline protease and inhibitor relative expression in normal human tissues and can be used for comparison with diseased tissue, e.g. ovarian cancer, to decipher pathogenesis, and to aid drug development. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Proteolysis as a Regulatory Event in Pathophysiology edited by Stefan Rose-John.