An intial draft of HKUPP standards and guidelines for urinary proteome analysis

HKUPP (Human Kidney and Urine Proteome Project) is an international collaborative research project for human kidney and urine proteomes, in which more than 150 participating colleagues collect and share proteomics data on the kidney and urine in order to understand functions of the kidney and mechanisms of disease progression, and finally to discover biomarkers and target molecules for new therapeutics of kidney diseases. The HKUPP has been recently approved as one of HUPO-sponsored scientific initiatives in October 2007. The data and information obtained in the project are open to the public through publications and the HKUPP website (http://hkupp.org) pertaining to the human kidney and urine proteomes. Based on our continued discussion since HUPO 6th Annual World Congress on October 2007 and 40th ASN Renal Week on November 2007, we are planning to draft an initial HKUPP Standards and Guidelines for Urinary Proteome Analysis. These recommendations are really needed for current situation because rapidly increasing number of investigators are trying or applying urinary proteomics, particularly for biomarker discovery. In this presentation we will provide our initial draft of standards and guidelines for urinary proteomics. Our aim is neither to use these standards and guidelines as the "rules and regulations" for publication in a proteomic journal nor to discourage analysis of the archival urine samples. Our mission is to encourage investigators to pay more attention on sample collection and handling, storage and treatment, and to perform urinary proteome analysis in more standardized way.