New blog rule -- no HeLa studies posted going forward.

There aren't many rules on this blog. There is a general "if you can't type anything nice don't push that orange button"and there are several...recommendations...regarding the use of images of the triumph of 1970s pharmacology that resulted in the one and only Mr. Madness, the Destroyer, Randy Savage.

However, the continued use of HeLa cells in proteomics is dumb and I'm going to attempt to make a rule here and not post on any studies that use these cells going forward. 

Why?

1) Ethical reasons. The estate of Henrietta Lacks filed a lawsuit against the Walmart of Science in October to stop the selling of these cells. 

2) Ethical reasons. The NIH has strict rules on the use of HeLa cells for genetic analysis for privacy reasons. The genomes of these cells are strictly controlled. You can get the genome from the NIH, but only through controlled use release, similar to getting access to other patient genetic information. 

Since we are increasingly aware that there is clearly identifiable information (and therefore privacy concerns) in proteomics data, it seems increasingly surprising that the NIH hasn't stepped in on this as well.

3) The proteome of the cell line isn't realistic when compared to most other human tissues. 

One of the reasons that proteomics has continued to use HeLa is because it makes every mass spectrometer look better than it really is, and we're a very vendor driven field. But we're running into this expectation gap. 

Extreme example: someone brings sickle cell affected red blood cells into your lab for analysis and they know that shiny new instrument their grants chipped in on can identify 5,000 proteins per run from the video that convinced them to sign over funds. You come back with 1,800 proteins and what will they assume? That they were scammed? Or that they should also find funds for a better operator. Hopefully they know that RBCs may only express 2,500 proteins. But other cells and cell types are similar. They don't express every protein in the genome, that's silly. HeLa cells with their mixed up extra chromosomes actively try to express nearly every protein at once. 

Good for mass spec vendors. Bad for expectations for proteomics.

Reminder, there are other QC materials for proteomics out there.

The Promega K562 digest is great. You don't get as many proteins as a HeLa digest, but it isn't that far off.

NIST produces a pooled liver protein sample for proteomics. I've heard it's great. 

For more words and a video on how my school takes the legacy of Henrietta Lacks seriously, check out this link.