Human Protein Atlas unveils version 25 at HUPO 2025 in Toronto
A major new version of the open-access Human Protein Atlas (HPA) was released last week at the HUPO World Congress in Toronto, marking a significant expansion of one of the most widely used biological reference resources.
Version 25 of the HPA now contains data for all human protein-coding genes, spanning protein profiles in cells, tissues, organs and blood. The knowledge database aggregates more than 10 million manually annotated bioimages and over 6 billion assay measurements generated from around 300,000 biological samples, organized into nine major sub-resources that each explore different aspects of human protein biology.
A centerpiece of the new release is an extended Human Disease Blood resource. It incorporates large-scale proteomics data from Olink Explore HT and SomaScan assays across 32 cohorts, covering 71 diseases, including cancer, autoimmune, infectious, neurological and cardiovascular conditions, as well as longitudinal studies of health and childhood. The atlas now provides pan-disease blood protein profiling alongside detailed protein signatures in healthy cohorts reflecting childhood development, aging and pregnancy.
“The HPA team is proud to launch this new version of the open-access HPA with a vast amount of new data generated both internally and externally. In particular, the new Human Disease Blood resource should be valuable for all researchers interested in translational medicine and the efforts to move from discovery into precision medicine,” Dr. Mathias Uhlen, the director of the HPA, said in an interview with Technology Networks.
Structural and spatial dimensions
The new release also strengthens the structural and spatial dimensions of the atlas. The Interaction resource, which maps protein–protein interaction networks for more than 15,000 proteins, now includes 23,000 in-house generated predicted interaction structures based on AlphaFold3.
On the single-cell front, the Single Cell resource has expanded to 34 tissues, adding data from adrenal gland, pituitary gland, epididymis and urinary bladder.
The breadth of HPA’s new spatial and single-cell information was a recurring theme at HUPO. The extensive spatial and single-cell data in the HPA reflect the growing prominence of these areas within proteomics. “Both drew strong interest at this week’s meeting,” said Jennifer Van Eyk, professor of biomedical sciences at Cedars-Sinai and past president of HUPO, in an interview with GenomeWeb. All data in the Human Protein Atlas continue to be freely available. Downloadable files with detailed metadata are provided for each resource, and the full dataset can be accessed in XML format.
The Human Protein Atlas is funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
Read more about the new version at the Human Protein Atlas website.
