ProteasiX · A novel bioinformatics’ platform to identify key proteasic pathways involved in kidney diseases

The aim of this project is to develop a new bioinformatics’ platform that will for the first time allow the identification of the key proteasic pathways involved in the development of kidney disease in an automatic and systematic way. Proteases generate peptides through cleavage of specific sites, present on given protein substrates. Interestingly, recent clinical studies have led to the identification of diagnostic and prognostic peptide biomarkers of a variety of nephropathies. The platform will thus contain a database grouping all these clinically relevant peptides and will automatically retrieve the enzymes involved in their generation by analyzing the sites that have been processed. To achieve this, the proposed work will use specific knowledge of the kidney pathophysiology in combination with state-of-the-art technologies in the bioinformatics’ field. The novelty of this project relies on: 1) automation of the process on large amount of data (gain of time); and 2) focus on enzymatic activity that will complement more classically used analyses of gene or protein expression (gain of knowledge). The disease-associated proteasic pathways identified in-silico will later be validated in a life-science lab and should lead at the long term to an improved understanding of the development of kidney diseases