Human liver cells proteome

The human liver functions through a complex interplay of parenchymal and non-parenchymal cells, which participate in performing many essential aspects of metabolism and secretion. Mass spectrometry-based proteomic analysis of intact tissue has improved the understanding of these processes, by providing an in-depth view of the human liver proteome. However, the predominance of parenchymal cells, i.e. hepatocytes, means that the total tissue proteome mainly reflects hepatocyte expression. In this study, we therefore used quantitative label-free proteomic analysis to analyze the proteomes of the major parenchymal and non-parenchymal cell types in the human liver, i.e. hepatocytes, liver sinusoidal endothelial cells, Kupffer cells, and hepatic stellate cells. We found that our data recapitulated specific functional differences between cell types, meaning that it can be used to reliably probe various aspects of cellular interplay. Thus, the data we provide constitutes a unique resource for exploring the human liver proteome at major cell type resolution.