Gary D. Pipes

An improved trypsin digestion method minimizes digestion-induced modifications on proteins

Trypsin digestion can induce artificial modifications such as asparagine deamidation and N-terminal glutamine cyclization on proteins due to the temperature and the alkaline pH buffers used during digestion. The amount of these artificial modifications is directly proportional to the incubation time of protein samples in the reduction/alkylation buffer and, more important, in the digestion buffer where the peptides are completely solvent exposed. To minimize these artificial modifications, we focused on minimizing the trypsin digestion time by maximizing trypsin activity. Trypsin activity was optimized by the complete removal of guanidine, which is a known trypsin inhibitor, from the digestion buffer. As a result, near complete trypsin digestion was achieved on reduced and alkylated immunoglobulin gamma molecules in 30min. The protein tryptic fragments and their modification products were analyzed and quantified by reversed-phase liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry using an in-line LTQ Orbitrap mass spectrometer. The reduction and alkylation reaction time was also minimized by monitoring the completeness of the reaction using a high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer. Using this 30-min in-solution trypsin digestion method, little protocol-induced deamidation or N-terminal glutamine cyclization product was observed and cleaner tryptic maps were obtained due to less trypsin self-digestion and fewer nonspecific cleavages. The throughput of trypsin digestion was also improved significantly compared with conventional trypsin digestion methods.

Aggregation of granulocyte-colony stimulating factor in vitro involves a conformationally altered monomeric state

Aggregation of partially folded intermediates populated during protein folding processes has been described for many proteins. Likewise, partially unfolded chains, generated by perturbation of numerous proteins by heat or chemical denaturants, have also been shown to aggregate readily. However, the process of protein aggregation from native‐state conditions is less well understood. Granulocyte‐colony stimulating factor (G‐CSF), a member of the four‐helix bundle class of cytokines, is a therapeutically relevant protein involved in stimulating the growth and maturation of phagocytotic white blood cells. Under native‐like conditions (37°C [pH 7.0]), G‐CSF shows a significant propensity to aggregate. Our data suggest that under these conditions, native G‐CSF exists in equilibrium with an altered conformation, which is highly aggregation prone. This species is enriched in 1–2 M GdmCl, as determined by tryptophan fluorescence and increased aggregation kinetics. In particular, specific changes in Trp58 fluorescence report a local rearrangement in the large loop region between helices A and B. However, circular dichroism, reactivity toward cyanylation, and ANS binding demonstrate that this conformational change is subtle, having no substantial disruption of secondary and tertiary structure, reactivity of the free sulfhydryl at Cys17 or exposure of buried hydrophobic regions. There is no indication that this altered conformation is important to biological activity, making it an attractive target for rational protein stabilization.

Comparison of LC and LC/MS Methods for Quantifying N-Glycosylation in Recombinant IgGs

High-performance liquid chromatography (LC) and liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC/ESI-MS) methods with various sample preparation schemes were compared for their ability to identify and quantify glycoforms in two different production lots of a recombinant monoclonal IgG1 antibody. IgG1s contain a conserved N-glycosylation site in the fragment crystallizable (Fc) subunit. Six methods were compared: (1) LC/ESI-MS analysis of intact IgG, (2) LC/ESI-MS analysis of the Fc fragment produced by limited proteolysis with Lys-C, (3) LC/ESI-MS analysis of the IgG heavy chain produced by reduction, (4) LC/ESI-MS analysis of Fc/2 fragment produced by limited proteolysis and reduction, (5) LC/MS analysis of the glycosylated tryptic fragment (293EEQYNSTYR301) using extracted ion chromatograms, and (6) normal phase HPLC analysis of N-glycans cleaved from the IgG using PNGase F. The results suggest that MS quantitation based on the analysis of Fc/2 (4) is accurate and gives results that are comparable to normal phase HPLC analysis of N-glycans (6).

Improving Mass Accuracy of High Performance Liquid Chromatography/ Electrospray Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry of Intact Antibodies

The glycosylation profile of intact antibody due to the galactose and fucose heterogeneity in the N-linked sugars was determined with instrument resolution of 5000 and 10,000. After deconvolution of electrospray ionization mass spectra to complete convergence, several extra peaks appeared in addition to the peaks observed in the original mass spectra. The artificial peaks were avoided if deconvolution was stopped after a smaller number of iterations. A standard antibody was used as an external calibrant to minimize mass measurement errors during long-period experiments. Precision of four consecutive LC/MS measurements of the same antibody was 10 ppm (±1.5 Da). By using this approach, the masses of 11 intact antibodies were measured. All antibodies containing N-terminal glutamines had a negative mass shift due to the formation of pyroglutamate (−17 Da). Although the pyroglutamate variant of intact antibody was not resolved from the unmodified variant, this modification led to a mass shift proportional to the percentage of N-terminal pyroglutamate. By accurately measuring the mass shift we were able to quantify the abundance of pyroglutamic acid on intact antibodies. Mass accuracy in measuring different antibodies was below 30 ppm (±4 Da). The accurate mass measurement can be an effective tool for monitoring chemical degradations in therapeutic antibodies.

Characterization of IgG1 immunoglobulins and peptide-Fc fusion proteins by limited proteolysis in conjunction with LC-MS.

A combinatory approach for the characterization of post-translational and chemical modifications in high molecular weight therapeutic proteins like antibodies and peptide-Fc fusion proteins (MW > or = 50 000 Da) is presented. In this approach, well-established techniques such as limited proteolysis, reversed-phase (RP) high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and in-line mass spectrometry (MS) were combined for the characterization of a monoclonal IgG1 antibody and three different peptide-Fc fusion proteins. The one commonality of these molecules is the presence of a similarly accessible lysine residue either located in the flexible hinge region of the antibody or in the flexible linker of the peptide-Fc fusion proteins. Applying limited proteolysis using endoproteinase Lys-C resulted in the predominant cleavage C-terminal of this lysine residue. The created fragments, two identical Fab domain fragments and one Fc domain fragment derived from the IgG1 antibody and one Fc domain fragment and each of the three individual peptide moieties generated from the peptide-Fc fusion proteins, were readily accessible for complete separation by RP-HPLC and detailed characterization by in-line MS analysis. This approach facilitated rapid detection of a variety of chemical modifications such as methionine oxidation, disulfide bond scrambling, and reduction as well as the characterization of various carbohydrate chains. We found limited proteolysis followed by RP-HPLC-MS to be less time-consuming for sample preparation, analysis, and data interpretation than traditional peptide mapping procedures. At the same time, the reduced sample complexity provided superior chromatographic and mass spectral resolution than the analysis of the corresponding intact molecules or a large number of enzymatically generated fragments.

Top-down N-terminal sequencing of Immunoglobulin subunits with electrospray ionization time of flight mass spectrometry

An N-terminal top-down sequencing approach was developed for IgG characterization, using high-resolution HPLC separation and collisionally activated dissociation (CAD) on a single-stage LCT Premier time of flight (TOF) mass spectrometer. Fragmentation of the IgG chains on the LCT Premier was optimized by varying the ion guide voltage values. Ion guide 1 voltage had the most significant effect on the fragmentation of the IgG chains. An ion guide 1 voltage value of 100 V was found to be optimum for the N-terminal fragmentation of IgG heavy and light chains, which are approximately 50 and 25 kDa, respectively. The most prominent ion series in this CAD experiment was the terminal b-ion series which allows N-terminal sequencing. Using this technique, we were able to confirm the sequence of up to seven N-terminal residues. Applications of this method for the identification of N-terminal pyroglutamic acid formation will be discussed. The method described could be used as a high-throughput method for the rapid N-terminal sequencing of IgG chains and for the detection of chemical modifications in the terminal residues.

Automated tryptic digestion procedure for HPLC/MS/MS peptide mapping of immunoglobulin gamma antibodies in pharmaceutics

The rapid growth of antibody drugs and drug candidates in the biopharmaceutical industry has created a demand for automated proteolytic digestion to assist in pharmaceutical stability studies, identity assays and quality control of these therapeutic proteins. Here, we describe the development of a fully automated proteolytic digestion procedure for monoclonal antibodies in solution, which requires a high concentration of denaturants for unfolding. The antibody samples were placed in a 96-well plate or in 0.5-mL Eppendorf tubes. The proteins were then reduced and alkylated in a denaturing solution of 6M guanidine HCl. The denaturing solution was replaced with a digestion buffer using a custom-designed 96-well size-exclusion plate for desalting. The sample was digested for 5 h with two additions of trypsin. The completeness and reproducibility of digestion were verified by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS) analysis of the digestion products. The performance of the automatic digestion was comparable to the currently used manual digestion procedure, but saved time, reduced manual labor, and increased the reproducibility of the tryptic digests. Our method should be useful not only for high-throughput analysis of antibodies, but for other therapeutic protein samples as well. Other applications like gel-free proteomics, where the analysis of a large number of samples is often needed and the completeness of the liquid digestion is critical for the identification of a large number of different proteins, should also benefit from this fully automated liquid proteolytic digestion procedure.

Optimization and applications of CDAP labeling for the assignment of cysteines.

PurposeThe aim of the study is to provide a methodology for assigning unpaired cysteine residues in proteins formulated in a variety of different conditions to identify structural heterogeneity as a potential cause for protein degradation.Methods1-Cyano-4-dimethylaminopyridinium tetrafluoroborate (CDAP) was employed for cyanylating free cysteines in proteins and peptides. Subsequent basic cleavage of the peptide bond at the N-terminal side of the cyanylated cysteines provided direct information about their location.ResultsCDAP was successfully employed to a wide variety of labeling conditions. CDAP was reactive between pH 2.0 and 8.0 with a maximum labeling efficiency at pH 5.0. Its reactivity was not affected by excipients, salt or denaturant. Storing CDAP in an organic solvent increased its intrinsic stability. It was demonstrated that CDAP can be employed as a thiol-directed probe to investigate structural heterogeneity of proteins by examining the accessibility of unpaired cysteine residues.ConclusionCDAP is a unique cysteine-labeling reagent because it is reactive under acidic conditions. This provides an advantage over other sulfhydryl labeling reagents as it avoids potential thiol-disulfide exchange. Optimization of the cyanylation reaction allowed the utilization of CDAP as a thiol-directed probe to investigate accessibility of sulfhydryl groups in proteins under various formulation conditions to monitor structural heterogeneity.

Middle-Down Fragmentation for the Identification and Quantitation of Site-Specific Methionine Oxidation in an IgG1 Molecule

A middle-down LC/MS approach, for the rapid quantitation and characterization of site-specific methionine oxidation in a recombinant monoclonal IgG1 molecule, is described. An IgG1 antibody was digested with endoprotease LysC under limited proteolytic conditions to produce two major components; an antigen binding fragment (Fab) and a crystallizable fraction (Fc). These fractions were then reduced to produce three major species; light chain (LC), Fc/2 which is the C terminal region of the heavy chain (HC) and the N-terminal heavy chain region (Fd). These three fragments were separated by reversed-phase HPLC using a diphenyl column. The diphenyl column resolved site-specific methionine oxidation in all three subunits. Middle-down N-terminal sequencing with a LCT premier mass spectrometer was used to identify the sites of oxidation in the LC. Sites of oxidation in the Fc/2 were identified using middle-down collision-induced dissociation (CID) on a Qtof premier. This method allowed for the rapid quantitation and identification of oxidation on each methionine residue in an IgG1 molecule.