Enhanced Characterization of Histones Using 193 nm Ultraviolet Photodissociation and Proton Transfer Charge Reduction

Abstract

Top-down characterization of histones, proteins that are critical participants in an array of DNA-dependent processes, offers the potential to examine the relationship between histone structure and mechanisms of genetic regulation. Mapping patterns of post-translational modifications (PTMs) of histones requires extensive backbone cleavages to bracket the sites of mass shifts corresponding to specific PTMs. Ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD) causes substantial fragmentation of proteins, which is well-suited for PTM localization, but the resulting spectra are congested with fragment ions that may have overlapping isotopic distributions that confound deconvolution. Gas-phase proton transfer charge reduction (PTCR) decreases the charge states of highly charged ions, thus alleviating this congestion and facilitating the identification of additional sequence-determining and PTM-localizing fragment ions. By integrating UVPD with PTCR for histone proteoform analyses, sequence coverages up to 91% were achieved for calf thymus histone H4 containing acetylation marks at the N-terminus and Lys12 as well as a dimethylation at Arg3. UVPD-PTCR exhibited large gains in characterization for other histones, such as histone H2A, increasing the sequence coverage from 59 to 77% for monoacetylated H2A.