Uma K. Aryal

Mass spectrometry-based proteomics

Mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics is emerging as a broadly effective means for identification, characterization, and quantification of proteins that are integral components of the processes essential for life. Characterization of proteins at the proteome and sub-proteome (e.g., the phosphoproteome, proteoglycome, or degradome/peptidome) levels provides a foundation for understanding fundamental aspects of biology. Emerging technologies such as ion mobility separations coupled with MS and microchip-based-proteome measurements combined with MS instrumentation and chromatographic separation techniques, such as nanoscale reversed phase liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis, show great promise for both broad undirected and targeted highly sensitive measurements. MS-based proteomics increasingly contribute to our understanding of the dynamics, interactions, and roles that proteins and peptides play, advancing our understanding of biology on a systems wide level for a wide range of applications including investigations of microbial communities, bioremediation, and human health.

Mapping N-linked glycosylation sites in the secretome and whole cells of Aspergillus niger using hydrazide chemistry and mass spectrometry.

Protein glycosylation (e.g., N-linked glycosylation) is known to play an essential role in both cellular functions and secretory pathways; however, our knowledge of in vivo N-glycosylated sites is very limited for the majority of fungal organisms including Aspergillus niger. Herein, we present the first extensive mapping of N-glycosylated sites in A. niger by applying an optimized solid phase glycopeptide enrichment protocol using hydrazide-modified magnetic beads. The enrichment protocol was initially optimized using both mouse blood plasma and A. niger secretome samples, and it was demonstrated that the protein-level enrichment protocol offered superior performance over the peptide-level protocol. The optimized protocol was then applied to profile N-glycosylated sites from both the secretome and whole cell lysates of A. niger. A total of 847 N-glycosylated sites from 330 N-glycoproteins (156 proteins from the secretome and 279 proteins from whole cells) were confidently identified by LC-MS/MS. The identified N-glycoproteins in the whole cell lysate were primarily localized in the plasma membrane, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, lysosome, and storage vacuoles, supporting the important role of N-glycosylation in the secretory pathways. In addition, these glycoproteins are involved in many biological processes including gene regulation, signal transduction, protein folding and assembly, protein modification, and carbohydrate metabolism. The extensive coverage of N-glycosylated sites and the observation of partial glycan occupancy on specific sites in a number of enzymes provide important initial information for functional studies of N-linked glycosylation and their biotechnological applications in A. niger.

Quantitative site-specific reactivity profiling of S-nitrosylation in mouse skeletal muscle using cysteinyl peptide enrichment coupled with mass spectrometry.

S-nitrosylation, the formation of S-nitrosothiol (SNO), is an important reversible thiol oxidation event that has been increasingly recognized for its role in cell signaling. Although many proteins susceptible to S-nitrosylation have been reported, site-specific identification of physiologically relevant SNO modifications remains an analytical challenge because of the low abundance and labile nature of this modification. Herein we present further improvement and optimization of the recently reported resin-assisted cysteinyl peptide enrichment protocol for SNO identification and its application to mouse skeletal muscle to identify specific cysteine sites sensitive to S-nitrosylation by a quantitative reactivity profiling strategy. Our results indicate that the protein- and peptide-level enrichment protocols provide comparable specificity and coverage of SNO-peptide identifications. S-nitrosylation reactivity profiling was performed by quantitatively comparing the site-specific SNO modification levels in samples treated with S-nitrosoglutathione, an NO donor, at two different concentrations (i.e., 10 and 100 μM). The reactivity profiling experiments led to the identification of 488 SNO-modified sites from 197 proteins with specificity of ∼95% at the unique peptide level, i.e., ∼95% of enriched peptides contain cysteine residues as the originally SNO-modified sites. Among these sites, 281 from 145 proteins were considered more sensitive to S-nitrosylation based on the ratios of observed SNO levels between the two treatments. These SNO-sensitive sites are more likely to be physiologically relevant. Many of the SNO-sensitive proteins are localized in mitochondria, contractile fiber, and actin cytoskeleton, suggesting the susceptibility of these subcellular compartments to redox regulation. Moreover, these observed SNO-sensitive proteins are primarily involved in metabolic pathways, including the tricarboxylic acid cycle, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, glutathione metabolism, and fatty acid metabolism, suggesting the importance of redox regulation in muscle metabolism and insulin action.

Identification of Phosphoproteins in Arabidopsis thaliana Leaves Using Polyethylene Glycol Fractionation, Immobilized Metal-ion Affinity Chromatography, Two-Dimensional Gel Electrophoresis and Mass Spectrometry

Reversible protein phosphorylation is a key regulatory mechanism in cells. Identification and characterization of phosphoproteins requires specialized enrichment methods, due to the relatively low abundance of these proteins, and is further complicated in plants by the high abundance of Rubisco in green tissues. We present a novel method for plant phosphoproteome analysis that depletes Rubisco using polyethylene glycol fractionation and utilizes immobilized metal-ion affinity chromatography to enrich phosphoproteins. Subsequent protein separation by one- and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis is further improved by extracting the PEG-fractionated protein samples with SDS/phenol and methanol/chloroform to remove interfering compounds. Using this approach, we identified 132 phosphorylated proteins in a partial Arabidopsis leaf extract. These proteins are involved in a range of biological processes, including CO(2) fixation, protein assembly and folding, stress response, redox regulation, and cellular metabolism. Both large and small subunits of Rubisco were phosphorylated at multiple sites, and depletion of Rubisco enhanced detection of less abundant phosphoproteins, including those associated with state transitions between photosystems I and II. The discovery of a phosphorylated form of AtGRP7, a self-regulating RNA-binding protein that affects floral transition, as well as several previously uncharacterized ribosomal proteins confirm the utility of this approach for phosphoproteome analysis and its potential to increase our understanding of growth and development in plants.

Identification of phosphorylated butyrylcholinesterase in human plasma using immunoaffinity purification and mass spectrometry

Paraoxon (diethyl 4-nitrophenyl phosphate) is an active metabolite of the common insecticide parathion and is acutely toxic due to the inhibition of cholinesterase (ChE) activity in the nervous systems. The inhibition of butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) activity by paraoxon is due to the formation of phosphorylated BChE adduct, and the detection of the phosphorylated BChE adduct in human plasma can serve as an exposure biomarker of organophosphate pesticides and nerve agents. In this study, we developed an immunoaffinity purification and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) strategy for identifying phosphorylated BChE in human plasma treated by paraoxon. BChE was captured by biotinylated anti-BChE polyclonal antibodies conjugated to streptavidin magnetic beads. Western blot analysis showed that the antibody was effective to recognize both native and modified BChE with high specificity. Using a purified BChE protein, we initially identified the exact phosphorylation site on the serine residue (S198) with a 108 Da modification by both MS/MS and accurately measured parent ion masses and quantified the extent of phosphorylation on S198 following paraoxon treatment to be >99.9%. Then, the phosphorylated BChE peptide in paraoxon-treated human plasma following immunoaffinity purification was successfully identified based on the accurate measured mass and retention time information initially obtained from the purified BChE protein. Thus, immunoaffinity purification combined with LC-MS represents a viable approach for the detection and quantification of phosphorylated BChE as an exposure biomarker of organophosphates and nerve agents.

Proteome Analyses of Strains ATCC 51142 and PCC 7822 of the Diazotrophic Cyanobacterium Cyanothece sp. under Culture Conditions Resulting in Enhanced H2 Production

ABSTRACT Cultures of the cyanobacterial genus Cyanothece have been shown to produce high levels of biohydrogen. These strains are diazotrophic and undergo pronounced diurnal cycles when grown under N2-fixing conditions in light-dark cycles. We seek to better understand the way in which proteins respond to these diurnal changes, and we performed quantitative proteome analysis of Cyanothece sp. strains ATCC 51142 and PCC 7822 grown under 8 different nutritional conditions. Nitrogenase expression was limited to N2-fixing conditions, and in the absence of glycerol, nitrogenase gene expression was linked to the dark period. However, glycerol induced expression of nitrogenase during part of the light period, together with cytochrome c oxidase (Cox), glycogen phosphorylase (Glp), and glycolytic and pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) enzymes. This indicated that nitrogenase expression in the light was facilitated via higher levels of respiration and glycogen breakdown. Key enzymes of the Calvin cycle were inhibited in Cyanothece ATCC 51142 in the presence of glycerol under H2-producing conditions, suggesting a competition between these sources of carbon. However, in Cyanothece PCC 7822, the Calvin cycle still played a role in cofactor recycling during H2 production. Our data comprise the first comprehensive profiling of proteome changes in Cyanothece PCC 7822 and allow an in-depth comparative analysis of major physiological and biochemical processes that influence H2 production in both strains. Our results revealed many previously uncharacterized proteins that may play a role in nitrogenase activity and in other metabolic pathways and may provide suitable targets for genetic manipulation that would lead to improvement of large-scale H2 production.

A Proteomic Strategy for Global Analysis of Plant Protein Complexes

A new size exclusion chromatography and mass spectrometry-based method was developed for proteomic analysis of endogenous protein complexes. It is predicted that about one-third of the detected cytosolic proteins exist in stable oligomeric complexes under optimal growth conditions. The method can be adapted to predict the composition and dynamics of protein complexes under different conditions. Global analyses of protein complex assembly, composition, and location are needed to fully understand how cells coordinate diverse metabolic, mechanical, and developmental activities. The most common methods for proteome-wide analysis of protein complexes rely on affinity purification-mass spectrometry or yeast two-hybrid approaches. These methods are time consuming and are not suitable for many plant species that are refractory to transformation or genome-wide cloning of open reading frames. Here, we describe the proof of concept for a method allowing simultaneous global analysis of endogenous protein complexes that begins with intact leaves and combines chromatographic separation of extracts from subcellular fractions with quantitative label-free protein abundance profiling by liquid chromatography-coupled mass spectrometry. Applying this approach to the crude cytosolic fraction of Arabidopsis thaliana leaves using size exclusion chromatography, we identified hundreds of cytosolic proteins that appeared to exist as components of stable protein complexes. The reliability of the method was validated by protein immunoblot analysis and comparisons with published size exclusion chromatography data and the masses of known complexes. The method can be implemented with appropriate instrumentation, is applicable to any biological system, and has the potential to be further developed to characterize the composition of protein complexes and measure the dynamics of protein complex localization and assembly under different conditions.

Resin-Assisted Enrichment of N‑Terminal Peptides for Characterizing Proteolytic Processing

A resin-assisted enrichment method has been developed for specific isolation of protein N-terminal peptides to facilitate LC-MS/MS characterization of proteolytic processing, a major form of posttranslational modifications. In this method, protein thiols are blocked by reduction and alkylation, and protein lysine residues are converted to homoarginines. Protein N-termini are selectively converted to reactive thiol groups, and the thiol-containing N-terminal peptides are then captured by a thiol-affinity resin with high specificity (>97%). The efficiencies of these sequential reactions were demonstrated to be nearly quantitative. The resin-assisted N-terminal peptide enrichment approach was initially applied to a cell lysate of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger. Subsequent C-MS/MS analyses resulted in the identification of 1672 unique protein N-termini or proteolytic cleavage sites from 690 unique proteins.

Analysis of protein complexes in Arabidopsis leaves using size exclusion chromatography and label-free protein correlation profiling

Protein complexes are fundamentally important for diverse cellular functions, and create functionalities that could never be achieved by a single polypeptide. Knowledge of the protein complex assemblies that exist in plant cells are limited. To close this gap, we applied an integrative proteomic approach that combines cell fractionation, protein chromatography and quantitative mass spectrometry (MS) to analyze the oligomerization state of thousands of proteins in a single experiment. Soluble extracts from intact Arabidopsis leaves were fractionated using size exclusion chromatography (SEC), and abundance profiles across the column fractions were quantified using label-free precursor ion (MS1) intensity. In duplicate experiments, we reproducibly detected 1693 proteins, of which 983 proteins were cytosolic. Based on the SEC profiles, approximately one third of all of the soluble proteins were predicted to be oligomeric. Our dataset includes both subunits of previously known complexes as well as hundreds of new protein complexes. The label-free MS1-based quantification method described here produced a highly useful dataset for the plant biology community, and provided a foundation to incorporate orthogonal protein complex separation methods so the composition and dynamics of protein complexes can be analyzed based on LC/MS profile data alone.

Proteomic profiles of five strains of oxygenic photosynthetic cyanobacteria of the genus Cyanothece.

Members of the cyanobacterial genus Cyanothece exhibit considerable variation in physiological and biochemical characteristics. The comparative assessment of the genomes and the proteomes has the potential to provide insights on differences among Cyanothece strains. By applying Sequedex, an annotation-independent method for ascribing gene functions, we confirmed significant species-specific differences of functional genes in different Cyanothece strains, particularly in Cyanothece PCC7425. Using a shotgun proteomics approach based on prefractionation and tandem mass spectrometry, we detected ∼28-48% of the theoretical Cyanothece proteome, depending on the strain. The expression of a total of 642 orthologous proteins was observed in all five Cyanothece strains. These shared orthologous proteins showed considerable correlations in their abundances across different Cyanothece strains. Functional classification indicated that the majority of proteins involved in central metabolic functions such as amino acid, carbohydrate, protein, and RNA metabolism, photosynthesis, respiration, and stress responses were observed to a greater extent in the core proteome, whereas proteins involved in membrane transport, iron acquisition, regulatory functions, flagellar motility, and chemotaxis were observed to a greater extent in the unique proteome. Considerable differences were evident across different Cyanothece strains. Notably, the analysis of Cyanothece PCC7425, which showed the highest number of unique proteins (682), provided direct evidence of evolutionary differences in this strain. We conclude that Cyanothece PCC7425 diverged significantly from the other Cyanothece strains or evolved from a different lineage.