PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Tarek M. El-Achkar
AU  - Michael T. Eadon
AU  - Rajasree Menon
AU  - Blue B. Lake
AU  - Tara K. Sigdel
AU  - Theodore Alexandrov
AU  - Samir Parikh
AU  - Guanshi Zhang
AU  - Dejan Dobi
AU  - Kenneth W. Dunn
AU  - Edgar A. Otto
AU  - Christopher R. Anderton
AU  - Jonas M. Carson
AU  - Jinghui Luo
AU  - Chris Park
AU  - Habib Hamidi
AU  - Jian Zhou
AU  - Paul Hoover
AU  - Andrew Schroeder
AU  - Marianinha Joanes
AU  - Evren U. Azeloglu
AU  - Rachel Sealfon
AU  - Seth Winfree
AU  - Becky Steck
AU  - Yongqun He
AU  - Vivette D’Agati
AU  - Ravi Iyengar
AU  - Olga G Troyanskaya
AU  - Laura Barisoni
AU  - Joseph Gaut
AU  - Kun Zhang
AU  - Zoltan Laszik
AU  - Brad Rovin
AU  - Pierre C. Dagher
AU  - Kumar Sharma
AU  - Minnie Sarwal
AU  - Jeffrey B. Hodgin
AU  - Charles E. Alpers
AU  - Matthias Kretzler
AU  - Sanjay Jain
AU  - For the Kidney Precision Medicine Project
TI  - A Multimodal and Integrated Approach to Interrogate Human Kidney Biopsies with Rigor and Reproducibility: The Kidney Precision Medicine Project
AID  - 10.1101/828665
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 828665
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/23/828665.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/23/828665.full
AB  - Comprehensive and spatially mapped molecular atlases of organs at a cellular level are a critical resource to gain insights into pathogenic mechanisms and personalized therapies for diseases. The Kidney Precision Medicine Project (KPMP) is an endeavor to generate 3-dimensional (3D) molecular atlases of healthy and diseased kidney biopsies using multiple state-of-the-art OMICS and imaging technologies across several institutions. Obtaining rigorous and reproducible results from disparate methods and at different sites to interrogate biomolecules at a single cell level or in 3D space is a significant challenge that can be a futile exercise if not well controlled. We describe a “follow the tissue” pipeline for generating a reliable and authentic single cell/region 3D molecular atlas of human adult kidney. Our approach emphasizes quality assurance, quality control, validation and harmonization across different OMICS and imaging technologies from sample procurement, processing, storage, shipping to data generation, analysis and sharing. We established benchmarks for quality control, rigor, reproducibility and feasibility across multiple technologies through a pilot experiment using common source tissue that was processed and analyzed at different institutions and different technologies. A peer review system was established to critically review quality control measures and the reproducibility of data generated by each technology before being approved to interrogate clinical biopsy specimens. The process established economizes the use of valuable biopsy tissue for multi-OMICS and imaging analysis with stringent quality control to ensure rigor and reproducibility of results and serves as a model for precision medicine projects across laboratories, institutions and consortia.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.