Search

Protein complexes exhibit great diversity in protein membership, post-translational modifications and noncovalent cofactors, enabling them to function as the actuators of many important biological processes. The exposition of these molecular features using current methods lacks either throughput or molecular specificity, ultimately limiting the use of protein complexes as direct analytical targets in a wide range of applications. Here, we apply native proteomics, enabled by a multistage tandem MS approach, to characterize 125 intact endogenous complexes and 217 distinct proteoforms derived from mouse heart and human cancer cell lines in discovery mode. The native conditions preserved soluble protein-protein interactions, high-stoichiometry noncovalent cofactors, covalent modifications to cysteines, and, remarkably, superoxide ligands bound to the metal cofactor of superoxide dismutase 2. These data enable precise compositional analysis of protein complexes as they exist in the cell and demonstrate a new approach that uses MS as a bridge to structural biology.

Recent advances in top-down mass spectrometry using native electrospray now enable the analysis of intact protein complexes with relatively small sample amounts in an untargeted mode. Here, we describe how to characterize both homo- and heteropolymeric complexes with high molecular specificity using input data produced by tandem mass spectrometry of whole protein assemblies. The tool described is a "search engine for multi-proteoform complexes," (SEMPC) and is available for free online. The output is a list of candidate multi-proteoform complexes and scoring metrics, which are used to define a distinct set of one or more unique protein subunits, their overall stoichiometry in the intact complex, and their pre- and post-translational modifications. Thus, we present an approach for the identification and characterization of intact protein complexes from native mass spectrometry data. © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., (Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)

Characterizing whole proteins by top-down proteomics avoids a step of inference encountered in the dominant bottom-up methodology when peptides are assembled computationally into proteins for identification. The direct interrogation of whole proteins and protein complexes from the venom of Ophiophagus hannah (king cobra) provides a sharply clarified view of toxin sequence variation, transit peptide cleavage sites and post-translational modifications (PTMs) likely critical for venom lethality. A tube-gel format for electrophoresis (called GELFrEE) and solution isoelectric focusing were used for protein fractionation prior to LC-MS/MS analysis resulting in 131 protein identifications (18 more than bottom-up) and a total of 184 proteoforms characterized from 14 protein toxin families. Operating both GELFrEE and mass spectrometry to preserve non-covalent interactions generated detailed information about two of the largest venom glycoprotein complexes: the homodimeric l-amino acid oxidase (∼130 kDa) and the multichain toxin cobra venom factor (∼147 kDa). The l-amino acid oxidase complex exhibited two clusters of multiproteoform complexes corresponding to the presence of 5 or 6 N-glycans moieties, each consistent with a distribution of N-acetyl hexosamines. Employing top-down proteomics in both native and denaturing modes provides unprecedented characterization of venom proteoforms and their complexes. A precise molecular inventory of venom proteins will propel the study of snake toxin variation and the targeted development of new antivenoms or other biotherapeutics., (© 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.)

The cadre of protein complexes in cells performs an array of functions necessary for life. Their varied structures are foundational to their ability to perform biological functions, lending great import to the elucidation of complex composition and dynamics. Native separation techniques that are operative on low sample amounts and provide high resolution are necessary to gain valuable data on endogenous complexes. Here, we detail and optimize the use of tube gel separations to produce samples proven compatible with native, multistage mass spectrometry (nMS/MS). We find that a continuous system (i.e., no stacking gel) with a gradient in its extent of cross-linking and use of the clear native buffer system performs well for both fractionation and native mass spectrometry of heart extracts and a fungal secretome. This integrated advance in separations and nMS/MS offers the prospect of untargeted proteomics at the next hierarchical level of protein organization in biology.

With the prospect of resolving whole protein molecules into their myriad proteoforms on a proteomic scale, the question of their quantitative analysis in discovery mode comes to the fore. Here, we demonstrate a robust pipeline for the identification and stringent scoring of abundance changes of whole protein forms <30 kDa in a complex system. The input is ~100-400 μg of total protein for each biological replicate, and the outputs are graphical displays depicting statistical confidence metrics for each proteoform (i.e., a volcano plot and representations of the technical and biological variation). A key part of the pipeline is the hierarchical linear model that is tailored to the original design of the study. Here, we apply this new pipeline to measure the proteoform-level effects of deleting a histone deacetylase (rpd3) in S. cerevisiae. Over 100 proteoform changes were detected above a 5% false positive threshold in WT vs the Δrpd3 mutant, including the validating observation of hyperacetylation of histone H4 and both H2B isoforms. Ultimately, this approach to label-free top down proteomics in discovery mode is a critical technical advance for testing the hypothesis that whole proteoforms can link more tightly to complex phenotypes in cell and disease biology than do peptides created in shotgun proteomics.

The rise of the "Top Down" method in the field of mass spectrometry-based proteomics has ushered in a new age of promise and challenge for the characterization and identification of proteins. Injecting intact proteins into the mass spectrometer allows for better characterization of post-translational modifications and avoids several of the serious "inference" problems associated with peptide-based proteomics. However, successful implementation of a Top Down approach to endogenous or other biologically relevant samples often requires the use of one or more forms of separation prior to mass spectrometric analysis, which have only begun to mature for whole protein MS. Recent advances in instrumentation have been used in conjunction with new ion fragmentation using photons and electrons that allow for better (and often complete) protein characterization on cases simply not tractable even just a few years ago. Finally, the use of native electrospray mass spectrometry has shown great promise for the identification and characterization of whole protein complexes in the 100 kDa to 1 MDa regime, with prospects for complete compositional analysis for endogenous protein assemblies a viable goal over the coming few years., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Dissociation of gaseous protein complexes produced by native electrospray often induces an asymmetric partitioning of charge between ejected subunits. We present a simple asymmetric charge partitioning factor (ACPF) to quantify the magnitude of asymmetry in this effect. When applied to monomer ejection from the cytochrome c dimer and β-amylase tetramer, we found that the ∼60–70% of precursor charge ending up in the ejected monomers corresponds to ACPFs of 1.38 and 2.51, respectively. Further, we used site-specific fragmentation from electron transfer dissociation (ETD) to identify differences in fragmentation and characterize domains of secondary-structure present in the dimer, ejected monomers, and monomers obtained directly from electrospray ionization (ESI). We found evidence of structural changes between the dimer and ejected monomer, but also that the ejected monomer had a nearly identical set of fragment ions produced by ETD as the ESI monomer with the same charge state. Surprisingly, ACPF values for ETD fragment ions generated directly from the dimer revealed that the fragments undergo asymmetric charge partitioning at over twice the magnitude of that observed for ejection of the monomer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]