The Pathology Atlas

The Pathology Atlas section of the Human Protein Atlas is an open-access database providing information on the role of genes, RNA, proteins, and metabolites in the human cancerous tissues and organs. It is a valuable resource that helps researchers and pathologists improve testing methods to predict and find new treatments for fighting cancer.

An open-access database for pathology

In 2017, the Human Protein Atlas project launched the Pathology Atlas: an open-access database of mRNA and protein expression data from 17 different forms of human cancer. It focuses on identifying prognostic gene signatures with the hopes of improving the diagnostic methods and therapeutic courses adopted in a clinical setting.

Correlation analysis of gene expression data and patient survival data collected in the Pathology Atlas resulted in more than 10,000 prognostic genes and includes more than 18,000 survival Kaplan-Meier plots. 

Over 5 million IHC images of cancer tissues

In addition, for the majority of protein-coding genes, the Pathology Atlas provides more than 5 million stained images of cancer tissues obtained from immunohistochemistry-tissue microarrays analysis of the corresponding proteins in patients with the different cancer types.

All transcriptomics data has been retrieved from the Cancer Genome Atlas and all proteomics data has been generated in-house using the same antibodies as in protein expression profiling in normal human tissues.

References

Uhlén et al. A pathology atlas of the human cancer transcriptome, Science. 2017 357(6352) DOI: 10.1126/science.aan2507

Uhlén et al. A human protein atlas for normal and cancer tissues based on antibody proteomics. Mol Cell Proteomics. 2005 4(12):1920-32. DOI: 10.1074/mcp.M500279-MCP200