From Amino Acids Profile to Protein Identification: Searching for Differences in Roe Deer Papilloma

Papillomaviruses, small non-enveloped DNA viruses, are considered as the cause of a number of cancers, such as a cervical, skin, anal, and penile cancers. Roe deer papillomavirus infection can be easily characterized by typical warts on the skin. The aim of this study was to characterize differences of amino acid and protein composition in healthy and tumour tissue of roe deer using methods including ion-exchange chromatography, SDS-PAGE, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF MS. The obtained data were statistically evaluated. Cluster analysis of all variables showed biggest differences in proline in control and papilloma samples. Further, we aimed at electrophoretic analysis of the samples. Discriminant analysis projections to latent structures (Projection to the latent structure Discrimination analysis, syn. Discrimination Partial least squares analysis, PLS DA) was used to evaluate the obtained results. Examining model PLS DA, there was found that the greatest effect on whether the individual is classified as healthy, or with papilloma, is the latent variable that best correlates with the molecular mass from 108.8 to 128.1 kDa and from 231.2 to 290.4 kDa in the original signal. Finally, using mass spectrometry three proteins, pyridoxal kinase, myoblast determination protein and leucine zipper transcription factor-like protein 1, most likely related to cancer were found.