News

Etienne Caron, ZTH Zurich, Switzerland

The large collection of peptides associated to human leukocyte antigens (HLA) is referred to as the human immunopeptidome. Deciphering the composition of the human immunopeptidome is of paramount importance to understand the immune system and to guide the development of next-generation vaccines and immunotherapies against autoimmunity, infectious diseases and cancers. Until now, mass spectrometry (MS) is the only available technology to interrogate the immunopeptidome in an accurate, systematic and unbiased manner. Therefore, the development of advanced analytical MS workflows is of great importance to enable the deciphering of the immunopeptidome at increasing depth and robustness.

Foundation of the Human Immuno-Peptidome Project
The Human Immuno-Peptidome Project (HUPO-HIPP) was created to accelerate research toward robust and comprehensive analysis of immunopeptidomes (https://hupo.org/human-immuno-peptidome-project/). On May 4–5th, 2017, 40 leading scientists and industry representatives from 18 universities and 9 companies convened in Zurich, Switzerland, for the first international HUPO-HIPP workshop (see picture).  During this event, participants identified specific challenges toward the goal of HUPO-HIPP, and within this framework, described the structure of a multipronged program aimed at addressing these challenges and implementing solutions at a community-wide level. The identified programs are: (1) method and technology development, (2) standardization, (3) effective data sharing, and (4) education (see details in Caron et al. Immunity, 2017)

1st HUPO-HIPP summer school: September 10-13 2018, Madrid, Spain
Members of HUPO-HIPP recognized that implementation of robust analytical workflows is a major hurdle to the expansion of the immunopeptidomics field. To circumvent this limitation and to disseminate the expertise on currently adopted methods by the immunopeptidomics community, the 1st HUPO-HIPP summer school was launched (http://www.hipp-summerschool.com/). Thus, the major goal of the summer school is to provide attendees with critical information about the main challenges of immunopeptidomics approaches with special emphasis on sample preparation, liquid chromatography-MS/MS analysis, bioinformatics and data sharing. Most importantly, the HUPO-HIPP summer school will contribute to boost the accessibility to immunopeptidomic technologies and to open this scientific niche to a bigger audience.

Next steps
HUPO-HIPP will soon publish the Minimal Information about an Immuno-Peptidomics Experiments (MIAIPE) to provide technical guidelines that represent the minimal information required to sufficiently support the evaluation and interpretation of immunopeptidomics experiments. HUPO-HIPP also plans to 1) establish partnerships with MS developers and other initiatives (e.g. Human Vaccines Project) to increase the impact of MS-based immunopeptidomics, 2) establish partnerships with journals’ editors and funding agencies (NIH and EC) to enforce sharing of immunopeptidomic data, 3) further develop the SysteMHC Atlas (https://systemhcatlas.org) for deposition and open sharing of immunopeptidomic datasets, 4) launch an international human immunopeptidome project consortium (HIPPC), and 5) continuously promote the visibility of HUPO-HIPP in publications, conferences, workshops and elsewhere. Progress and future plans will be discuss at HUPO-Orlando 2018.

If you would like to become a member of HUPO-HIPP complete the attached Membership Form and email to the address provided.