Identification of Thymosin Proteins in Human Bladder Tumor Cells by Mass Spectrometry and Data Base Searching.

Abstract

A study of the induction of metallothionein isoforms in human T24 bladder tumor cells revealed the presence of coeluting unknown proteins that were also heat stable and had molecular masses in the same range. In order to determine any relationship to metallothionein isoforms, these unknown proteins were identified, using database searching based on mass spectrometric determination of molecular weights, tryptic peptide mass maps and partial sequences. This study demonstrates that heat stable thymosin β-4 and β-10 are expressed in human bladder tumor cells.