毛细管区带电泳／串联质谱联用法鉴定多肽和蛋白质

建立了毛细管区带电泳－串联质谱联用（ＣＺＥ／ＭＳ／ＭＳ）对多肽和蛋白质高灵敏度鉴定方法,对Ｍｅｔ－脑啡肽和Ｌｅｕ－脑啡肽的混合物进行了分析,用ＣＺＥ／ＭＳ／ＭＳ方法验证了各自的序列,同样对细胞色素ｃ的胰蛋白酶酶解产物用ＣＺＥ／ＭＳ／ＭＳ方法进行了肽质谱分析,几科所有肽段的序列及其与在分子中的位置都得到了确定,通过ＳＥＱＵＥＳＴ软件进行蛋白质序列数据库搜索得到准确的鉴定结果,所消耗的样品量均在低皮可     

Rapid selection of peptide containing fractions in off‐line 2‐D HPLC in shotgun proteome analysis by screening with MALDI TOF MS

A simple and fast screening method for the selection of fractions of first dimension separation to be analyzed in second dimension‐MS/MS experiments in offline multidimensional liquid chromatographic separation schemes for shotgun proteome analysis was developed. The method is based on the measurement of total peptide content of the first dimension fractions by MALDI MS and was established using a tryptic digest of a bacterial proteome. The results of the screening process were in good agreement with those obtained in a detailed proteome analysis performed by RP×ion‐pair RP‐MALDI TOF/TOF MS analysis. The method supports a straightforward planning of experiments, also enabling a reduction of overall measurement time in shotgun proteome analysis.     

Systematic and quantitative comparison of digest efficiency and specificity reveals the impact of trypsin quality on MS-based proteomics

Trypsin is the most frequently used proteolytic enzyme in mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Beside its good availability, it also offers some major advantages such as an optimal average peptide length of ~ 14 amino acids, and typically the presence of at least two defined positive charges at the N-terminus as well as the C-terminal Arg/Lys, rendering tryptic peptides well suited for CID-based LC-MS/MS. Here, we conducted a systematic study of different types of commercially available trypsin in order to qualitatively and quantitatively compare cleavage specificity, efficiency as well as reproducibility and the potential impact on quantitation and proteome coverage. We present a straightforward strategy applied to complex digests of human platelets, comprising (1) digest controls using a monolithic column HPLC-setup, (2) SCX enrichment of semitryptic/nonspecific peptides, (3) targeted MRM analysis of corresponding full cleavage/missed cleavage peptide pairs as well as (4) LC-MS analyses of complete digests with a three-step data interpretation. Thus, differences in digest performance can be readily assessed, rendering these procedures extremely beneficial to quality control not only the trypsin of choice, but also to effectively compare as well as optimize different digestion conditions and to evaluate the reproducibility of a dedicated digest protocol for all kinds of quantitative proteome studies.     

1-DE MS and 2-D LC-MS analysis of the mouse bronchoalveolar lavage proteome

Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) is a complex mixture of proteins, which represents a unique clinically useful sampling of the lower respiratory tract. Many proteomic technologies can be used to characterize complex biological mixtures; however, it is not yet clear which technology(s) provide more information regarding the number of proteins identified and sequence coverage. In this study, we initially compared two common proteomic approaches, 2-D LC microESI MS/MS and 1-DE followed by gel slice digestion, peptide extraction and peptide identification by MS in characterization of the mouse BALF proteome; secondly, we identified 297 unique proteins from the mouse BALF proteome, greatly expanded the BALF proteome by about threefold regardless of species.     

Accurate mass comparison coupled with two endopeptidases enables identification of protein termini

Protein termini play important roles in biological processes, but there have been few methods for comprehensive terminal proteomics. We have developed a new method that can identify both the amino and the carboxyl termini of proteins. The method independently uses two proteases, (lysyl endopeptidase) Lys-C and peptidyl-Lys metalloendopeptidase (Lys-N), to digest proteins, followed by LC-MS/MS analysis of the two digests. Terminal peptides can be identified by comparing the peptide masses in the two digests as follows: (i) the amino terminal peptide of a protein in Lys-C digest is one lysine residue mass heavier than that in Lys-N digest; (ii) the carboxyl terminal peptide in Lys-N digest is one lysine residue mass heavier than that in Lys-C digest; and (iii) all internal peptides give exactly the same molecular masses in both the Lys-C and the Lys-N digest, although amino acid sequences of Lys-C and Lys-N peptides are different (Lys-C peptides end with lysine, whereas Lys-N peptides begin with lysine). The identification of terminal peptides was further verified by examining their MS/MS spectra to avoid misidentifying pairs as termini. In this study, we investigated the usefulness of this method using several protein and peptide mixtures. Known protein termini were successfully identified. Acetylation on N-terminus and protein isoforms, which have different termini, was also determined. These results demonstrate that our new method can confidently identify terminal peptides in protein mixtures.     

Automation of nanoflow liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry for proteome analysis by using a strong cation exchange trap column

An approach was developed to automate sample introduction for nanoflow LC-MS/MS (microLC-MS/MS) analysis using a strong cation exchange (SCX) trap column. The system consisted of a 100 microm id x 2 cm SCX trap column and a 75 microm id x 12 cm C18 RP analytical column. During the sample loading step, the flow passing through the SCX trap column was directed to waste for loading a large volume of sample at high flow rate. Then the peptides bound on the SCX trap column were eluted onto the RP analytical column by a high salt buffer followed by RP chromatographic separation of the peptides at nanoliter flow rate. It was observed that higher performance of separation could be achieved with the system using SCX trap column than with the system using C18 trap column. The high proteomic coverage using this approach was demonstrated in the analysis of tryptic digest of BSA and yeast cell lysate. In addition, this system was also applied to two-dimensional separation of tryptic digest of human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line SMMC-7721 for large scale proteome analysis. This system was fully automated and required minimum changes on current microLC-MS/MS system. This system represented a promising platform for routine proteome analysis.     

Isolation of N-terminal protein sequence tags from cyanogen bromide cleaved proteins as a novel approach to investigate hydrophobic proteins

A novel method for the isolation of protein sequence tags to identify proteins in a complex mixture of hydrophobic proteins is described. The PST (Protein Sequence Tag) technology deals with the isolation and MS/MS based identification of one N-terminal peptide from each polypeptide fragment generated by cyanogen bromide cleavage of a mixture of proteins. PST sampling takes place after sub-cellular fractionation of a complex protein mixture to give enrichment of mitochondrial proteins. The method presented here combines effective sample preparation with a novel peptide isolation protocol involving chemical and enzymatic cleavage of proteins coupled to chemical labeling and selective capture procedures. The overall process has been very successful for the analysis of complex mixtures of hydrophobic proteins, particularly membrane proteins. This method substantially reduces the complexity of a protein digest by "sampling" the peptides present in the digest. The sampled digest is amenable to analysis by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Methods of "sampling" protein digests have great value' if they can provide sufficient information to identify substantially all of the proteins in the sample while reducing the complexity of the sample to maximize the efficient usage of LC-MS/MS capacity. The validity of the process is demonstrated for mitochondrial samples from S. cerevisiae. The proteins identified by the PST technology are compared to the proteins identified by the conventional technology 2-D gel electrophoresis as a control.     

Large-scale identification of proteins in human salivary proteome by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis-mass spectrometry

Human saliva contains a large number of proteins and peptides (salivary proteome) that help maintain homeostasis in the oral cavity. Global analysis of human salivary proteome is important for understanding oral health and disease pathogenesis. In this study, large-scale identification of salivary proteins was demonstrated by using shotgun proteomics and two-dimensinal gel electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (2-DE-MS). For the shotgun approach, whole saliva proteins were prefractionated according to molecular weight. The smallest fraction, presumably containing salivary peptides, was directly separated by capillary liquid chromatography (LC). However, the large protein fractions were digested into peptides for subsequent LC separation. Separated peptides were analyzed by on-line electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) using a quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometer, and the obtained spectra were automatically processed to search human protein sequence database for protein identification. Additionally, 2-DE was used to map out the proteins in whole saliva. Protein spots 105 in number were excised and in-gel digested; and the resulting peptide fragments were measured by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry and sequenced by LC-MS/MS for protein identification. In total, we cataloged 309 proteins from human whole saliva by using these two proteomic approaches.     

High pH reversed‐phase chromatography as a superior fractionation scheme compared to off‐gel isoelectric focusing for complex proteome analysis

MS/MS is the technology of choice for analyzing complex protein mixtures. However, due to the intrinsic complexity and dynamic range present in higher eukaryotic proteomes, prefractionation is an important step to maximize the number of proteins identified. Off‐gel IEF (OG‐IEF) and high pH RP (Hp‐RP) column chromatography have both been successfully utilized as a first‐dimension peptide separation technique in shotgun proteomic experiments. Here, a direct comparison of the two methodologies was performed on ex vivo peripheral blood mononuclear cell lysate. In 12‐fraction replicate analysis, Hp‐RP resulted in more peptides and proteins identified than OG‐IEF fractionation. Distributions of peptide pIs and hydropathy did not reveal any appreciable bias in either technique. Resolution, defined here as the ability to limit a specific peptide to one particular fraction, was significantly better for Hp‐RP. This leads to a more uniform distribution of total and unique peptides for Hp‐RP across all fractions collected. These results suggest that fractionation by Hp‐RP over OG‐IEF is the better choice for typical complex proteome analysis.     

Database searching and accounting of multiplexed precursor and product ion spectra from the data independent analysis of simple and complex peptide mixtures

A novel database search algorithm is presented for the qualitative identification of proteins over a wide dynamic range, both in simple and complex biological samples. The algorithm has been designed for the analysis of data originating from data independent acquisitions, whereby multiple precursor ions are fragmented simultaneously. Measurements used by the algorithm include retention time, ion intensities, charge state, and accurate masses on both precursor and product ions from LC‐MS data. The search algorithm uses an iterative process whereby each iteration incrementally increases the selectivity, specificity, and sensitivity of the overall strategy. Increased specificity is obtained by utilizing a subset database search approach, whereby for each subsequent stage of the search, only those peptides from securely identified proteins are queried. Tentative peptide and protein identifications are ranked and scored by their relative correlation to a number of models of known and empirically derived physicochemical attributes of proteins and peptides. In addition, the algorithm utilizes decoy database techniques for automatically determining the false positive identification rates. The search algorithm has been tested by comparing the search results from a four‐protein mixture, the same four‐protein mixture spiked into a complex biological background, and a variety of other “system” type protein digest mixtures. The method was validated independently by data dependent methods, while concurrently relying on replication and selectivity. Comparisons were also performed with other commercially and publicly available peptide fragmentation search algorithms. The presented results demonstrate the ability to correctly identify peptides and proteins from data independent acquisition strategies with high sensitivity and specificity. They also illustrate a more comprehensive analysis of the samples studied; providing approximately 20% more protein identifications, compared to a more conventional data directed approach using the same identification criteria, with a concurrent increase in both sequence coverage and the number of modified peptides.     

Shotgun proteome analysis utilising mixed mode (reversed phase‐anion exchange chromatography) in conjunction with reversed phase liquid chromatography mass spectrometry analysis

The 2‐D peptide separations employing mixed mode reversed phase anion exchange (MM (RP‐AX)) HPLC in the first dimension in conjunction with RP chromatography in the second dimension were developed and utilised for shotgun proteome analysis. Compared with strong cation exchange (SCX) typically employed for shotgun proteomic analysis, peptide separations using MM (RP‐AX) revealed improved separation efficiency and increased peptide distribution across the elution gradient. In addition, improved sample handling, with no significant reduction in the orthogonality of the peptide separations was observed. The shotgun proteomic analysis of a mammalian nuclear cell lysate revealed additional proteome coverage (2818 versus 1125 unique peptides and 602 versus 238 proteins) using the MM (RP‐AX) compared with the traditional SCX hyphenated to RP‐LC‐MS/MS. The MM analysis resulted in approximately 90% of the unique peptides identified present in only one fraction, with a heterogeneous peptide distribution across all fractions. No clustering of the predominant peptide charge states was observed during the gradient elution. The application of MM (RP‐AX) for 2‐D LC proteomic studies was also extended in the analysis of iTRAQ‐labelled HeLa and cyanobacterial proteomes using nano‐flow chromatography interfaced to the MS/MS. We demonstrate MM (RP‐AX) HPLC as an alternative approach for shotgun proteomic studies that offers significant advantages over traditional SCX peptide separations.     

Improved 2D nano-LC/MS for proteomics applications: a comparative analysis using yeast proteome.

The most commonly used method for protein identification with two-dimensional (2D) online liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS) involves the elution of digest peptides from a strong cation exchange column by an injected salt step gradient of increasing salt concentration followed by reversed phase separation. However, in this approach ion exchange chromatography does not perform to its fullest extent, primarily because the injected volume of salt solution is not optimized to the SCX column. To improve the performance of strong cation exchange chromatography, we developed a new method for 2D online nano-LC/MS that replaces the injected salt step gradient with an optimized semicontinuous pumped salt gradient. The viability of this method is demonstrated in the results of a comparative analysis of a complex tryptic digest of the yeast proteome using the injected salt solution method and the semicontinuous pump salt method. The semicontinuous pump salt method compares favorably with the commonly used injection method and also with an offline 2D-LC method.     

Expanding the mouse embryonic stem cell proteome: Combining three proteomic approaches

The current study used three different proteomic strategies, which differed by their extent of intact protein separation, to examine the proteome of a pluripotent mouse embryonic stem cell line, R1. Proteins from whole‐cell lysates were subjected either to 2‐D‐LC, or 1‐DE, or were unfractionated prior to enzymatic digestion and subsequent analysis by MS. The results yielded 1895 identified non‐redundant proteins and, for 128 of these, the specific isoform could be determined based on detection of an isoform‐specific peptide. When compared with two previously published proteomic studies that used the same cell line, the current study reveals 612 new proteins.     

Analysis of human liver proteome using replicate shotgun strategy

In this study, a liquid-based shotgun strategy was used to comprehensively identify the expression of human liver proteome. Proteins were extracted from human liver tissue and digested in-solution. The tryptic digest mixture was desalted and separated by off-line strong cation exchange (SCX) chromatography with a 60-min elution. The MS/MS spectra were acquired in data-dependent mode after an RP chromatographic separation combined with linear IT MS analysis. To obtain the most comprehensive human liver proteome, each SCX fraction was run six times in RPLC MS/MS manner. Finally, more than 6,000,000 MS/MS spectra were collected. Using a relatively strict filter criteria, 24,311 proteins (48.42% of the predicted human proteome from human International Protein Index (IPI) protein database 3.07) corresponding to 13,150 nonredundant proteins were successfully identified, in which 7001 proteins (53.24%) were identified by two or more peptides, which could be considered as a high-confident dataset. Among the 6149 proteins (46.76%) identified by single peptide, 3812 proteins (61.99%) were detected more than twice in six repeated runs. Comparative analysis between different runs shows that the overlap of identified proteins between any two runs ranged from 25 to 44%. Of the nonredundant proteins identified, 8919 proteins (67.83%) were detected more than twice and 4231 proteins (32.17%) were detected only once in six RPLC MS/MS runs. The Gene Ontology annotation shows that the identified proteins come from various subcellular components. In addition, a large number of low abundant proteins were identified. The dynamic range of the approach reached at least nine orders of magnitude by estimating the concentration of proteins.     

Increased proteome coverage by combining PAGE and peptide isoelectric focusing: Comparative study of gel‐based separation approaches

The in‐depth analysis of complex proteome samples requires fractionation of the sample into subsamples prior to LC‐MS/MS in shotgun proteomics experiments. We have established a 3D workflow for shotgun proteomics that relies on protein separation by 1D PAGE, gel fractionation, trypsin digestion, and peptide separation by in‐gel IEF, prior to RP‐HPLC‐MS/MS. Our results show that applying peptide IEF can significantly increase the number of proteins identified from PAGE subfractionation. This method delivers deeper proteome coverage and provides a large degree of flexibility in experimentally approaching highly complex mixtures by still relying on protein separation according to molecular weight in the first dimension.     

Improved proteome coverage by using high efficiency cysteinyl peptide enrichment: the human mammary epithelial cell proteome

Automated multidimensional capillary liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) has been increasingly applied in various large scale proteome profiling efforts. However, comprehensive global proteome analysis remains technically challenging due to issues associated with sample complexity and dynamic range of protein abundances, which is particularly apparent in mammalian biological systems. We report here the application of a high efficiency cysteinyl peptide enrichment (CPE) approach to the global proteome analysis of human mammary epithelial cells (HMECs) which significantly improved both sequence coverage of protein identifications and the overall proteome coverage. The cysteinyl peptides were specifically enriched by using a thiol-specific covalent resin, fractionated by strong cation exchange chromatography, and subsequently analyzed by reversed-phase capillary LC-MS/MS. An HMEC tryptic digest without CPE was also fractionated and analyzed under the same conditions for comparison. The combined analyses of HMEC tryptic digests with and without CPE resulted in a total of 14 416 confidently identified peptides covering 4294 different proteins with an estimated 10% gene coverage of the human genome. By using the high efficiency CPE, an additional 1096 relatively low abundance proteins were identified, resulting in 34.3% increase in proteome coverage; 1390 proteins were observed with increased sequence coverage. Comparative protein distribution analyses revealed that the CPE method is not biased with regard to protein M(r) , pI, cellular location, or biological functions. These results demonstrate that the use of the CPE approach provides improved efficiency in comprehensive proteome-wide analyses of highly complex mammalian biological systems.     

Proteome wide screening using peptide affinity capture

MS‐based strategies are key technologies for identifying proteins in proteomic research. Despite significant improvements in recent years efficient fractionation processes of target analytes remain major bottlenecks in MS‐based protein analysis. Immunoaffinity‐based sample fractionation strategies have shown their potential for the enrichment of analyte peptides of interest, but only small numbers of analytes can be quantified in one experiment. The lack of appropriate capture reagents limits the application of immunoaffinity‐based approaches and only biased biomarker discovery approaches are possible. This perspective discusses the current status of immunoaffinity MS‐based approaches and introduces a novel concept that uses group specific anti‐peptide antibodies – Triple X Proteomics Antibodies – for the enrichment of signature peptides. Classes of peptides with identical termini can be fractionated based on TXP immunoaffinity enrichment steps and can subsequently be identified using established tandem MS procedures. Based on bioinformatic algorithms minimal sets of TXP epitopes can be specified, that cover a wide range of given proteome landscapes of one or even several different species. This opens the possibility to use a minimal number of TXP antibodies as a universal toolbox for general immunoaffinity‐based approaches in proteome analysis.     

Automated LC–LC–MS–MS platform using binary ion-exchange and gradient reversed-phase chromatography for improved proteomic analyses

A simple multidimensional liquid chromatography system utilizing an isocratic pump and a HPLC system is described for the comprehensive proteomic analysis of complex peptide digest mixtures by coupled LC–LC–MS–MS techniques. A binary ion-exchange separation was achieved through the use of a strong cation-exchange column followed by a reversed-phase column for data-dependent LC–MS–MS analysis of the unbound analytes, and following salt elution (and concomitant column reequilibration), the bound analytes. Off-line validation of the platform showed near quantitative recovery of fractionated peptides and essentially complete ion-exchange partitioning. In comparative analyses of a highly complex peptide digest mixture a >40% increase in the number of peptide and protein identifications was achieved using this multidimensional platform compared to an unfractionated control.