UK Amyloid Proteomics Facility

UK's only UKAS-accredited clinical proteomics facility

Proteomics is now considered the new gold standard for amyloid typing, providing a direct chemical description of the protein content in the amyloid deposits.

Mass spectrometry based proteomics is now used in the National Amyloidosis Centre, both as a clinical diagnostic service and for research into the disease.

The laboratory receives tissues for analysis from the UK and overseas as well as from our clinics.

Clinical services - tissue amyloid identification

We receive clinical samples of formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue, fat aspirates or untreated tissue by referral to the NAC clinical staff or through the NAC histology service.

Following staining and immunohistochemistry, Congo red-positive (amyloid) material is selected by laser capture dissection (LCD) and analysed by a proteomics approach using the Mascot search engine to identify the amyloidogenic protein(s).

Variant and other searches are conducted as appropriate. The clinical and proteomic databases are linked, and we use a simple algorithm to automatically identify the pathogenic amyloid protein.

Amyloidogenic proteins identified in our patient database: apolipoproteins A1, A4, C2, C3, ANP, fibrinogen Aα chain, gelsolin, immunoglobulin light chains (lambda and kappa) and heavy chain, insulin, leukocyte cell-derived chemotaxin-2, lysozyme, b2-microglobulin, semenogelin, serum amyloid A, transthyretin.

Proteomics can also identify non-amyloid fibrillary glomerulonephritis from the DNJB9 signature.

Clinical proteomics data are reviewed, together with histological, genetic, and clinical presentation, at a weekly multidisciplinary team meeting by both clinical and scientific research staff.

Pricing

Submit samples by clinical referral to the centre. The sample service includes:

• Amyloid histology
• Immunohistochemistry
• Laser capture dissection
• Proteomic analysis
• Final report.

Additional and collaborative work:

• Additional enzyme digestions and analysis £150
• Decellularization £200
• Data analysis including variant and PTM searches £70/h.

Staff