Multi-Tissue Proteome Data Identifies Possible Therapeutic Targets

By combining Mendelian randomization and colocalization analyses with multi-tissue protein quantitative trait loci, Washington University School of Medicine researchers have homed in on potentially druggable proteins. As they report in Genome Medicine, they identified 80 cerebrospinal fluid, 52 plasma, and nine brain proteins that they tied to 64, 49, and 15 disease-related phenotypes, respectively. By then folding in published data on the druggable genome, the researchers found that between about 67 and 86 percent of these proteins could be a potential therapeutic target. A handful could further be tied to drug compounds within DrugBank or ChEMBL. They in particular prioritized six CSF proteins, nine plasma proteins, and three brain proteins for further study. "We anticipate that in the future, much larger-scale studies using additional proteins from a more extensive set of tissues with more phenotypes will facilitate the drug repositioning process," they add.