In-solution Isoelectric Focusing Research Articles

Purification of plant complex protein extracts in non-denaturing conditions by in-solution isoelectric focusing

An alternative approach for plant complex protein extracts pre-purification by in-solution isoelectric focusing in non-denaturing conditions is presented. The separation of biologically active proteins, in narrow ranges of isoelectric point (pI) was obtained by a modified OFFGEL electrophoresis. Two different water-soluble protein extracts from Phragmites leaves were fractionated into 24 fractions within a 3–10 pI range at 10 °C in the absence of denaturing/reducing agents. One-dimensional electrophoretic analysis revealed different protein distribution patterns and the effective fractionation of both protein extracts. Peroxidase activity of each fraction confirmed that proteins remained active and pre-purification occurred. Biological triplicates assured the needed reproducibility.

Quantitative pH assessment of small-volume samples using a universal pH indicator

We developed a hue-based pH determination method to analyze digital images of samples in a 384-well plate after the addition of a universal pH indicator. The standard error of calibration for 69 pH standards was 0.078 pH units, and no sample gave an error greater than 0.23 units. We then used in-solution isoelectric focusing to determine the isoelectric point of Wnt3A protein in conditioned medium and after purification and applied the described method to assess the pH of these small-volume samples. End users may access our standard to assay the pH of their own samples with no additional calibration.

Rapid Peptide in-Solution Isoelectric Focusing Fractionation for Deep Proteome Analysis

The interplay between resolution, accuracy, sensitivity and speed of the mass spectrometer, as well as the complexity of the peptide mixture in relation to chromatographic separation and the analysis time finally determines the number of identified proteins within a ‘shotgun’ proteomic study. The improvement of one of these parameters can enhance the quality of the proteome analysis. Here we evaluated the technique of in-solution isoelectric focusing (IEF) for pre-fractionation of tryptic peptides prior to LC-MS/MS-based proteomics analysis. In-solution IEF turned out to be a simple and fast method for peptide fractionation prior to LC-MS analysis. By adapting the experimental procedures, this approach enabled identification of more than 44,000 peptides belonging to 5,800 proteins in less than 48 working hours, from protein extraction until the end of LC-MS analysis. This technique was applied successfully to analyze the proteomes of mammalian cells and different model organisms, without additional efforts or special technical equipment. The in-solution IEF of peptides is very robust and can be applied in combination with different extraction procedures. The high number of identified peptides using a standard LC-MS system led to average protein coverage of 25%. Such a high average number of identified peptides per protein improved the discrimination of protein species as isoforms or splice variants. Thus, in solution IEF is a fast and robust alternative to gel-based proteomics or other gel free fractionation techniques upstream to LC-MS/MS analysis. The reduction of processing time and the high performance of this technique can speed up deep proteomics analyses significantly.

New approaches for biomarker discovery: the search for liver fibrosis markers in hepatitis C patients.

Despite many shortcomings, liver biopsy is regarded as the gold standard for assessing liver fibrosis. A less invasive and equally or more reliable approach would constitute a major advancement in the field. Proteomics can aid discovery of novel serological markers and these proteins can be measured in patient blood. A major challenge of discovering biomarkers in serum is the presence of highly abundant serum proteins, which restricts the levels of total protein loaded onto gels and limits the detection of low abundance features. To overcome this problem, we used two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) over a narrow pH 3−5.6 range since this lies outside the range of highly abundant albumin, transferrin and immunoglobulins. In addition, we used in-solution isoelectric focusing followed by SDS-PAGE to find biomarkers in hepatitis C induced liver cirrhosis. Using the pH 3−5.6 range for 2-DE, we achieved improved representation of low abundance features and enhanced separation. We found in-solution isoelectric focusing to be beneficial for analyzing basic, high molecular weight proteins. Using this method, the beta chains of both complement C3 and C4 were found to decrease in serum from hepatitis C patients with cirrhosis, a change not observed previously by 2-DE. We present two proteomics approaches that can aid in the discovery of clinical biomarkers in various diseases and discuss how these approaches have helped to identify 23 novel biomarkers for hepatic fibrosis.

Cloud-Point Extraction and Delipidation of Porcine Brain Proteins in Combination with Bottom-Up Mass Spectrometry Approaches for Proteome Analysis

In this study, temperature-induced phase fractionation also known as cloud-point extraction (CPE) with the nonionic surfactant Triton X-114 was used to simultaneously extract hydrophobic and hydrophilic proteins from porcine brain tissue. Various protein precipitation/delipidation procedures were investigated to efficiently remove lipids and detergents while retaining maximum protein recoveries. The best performing delipidation method was then used in combination with CPE to compare three different mass spectrometry (MS) based "bottom-up" proteomic approaches for protein analysis of the porcine brain. In the first approach, the intact proteins were initially separated by one-dimensional (1D) gel electrophoresis. The excised protein bands were digested with trypsin, and the peptides were separated by reversed phase nanoliquid chromatography (RP-nanoLC) followed by electrospray ionization (ESI) tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) analysis. The other bottom-up proteomic approaches were based on first enzymatical digestion of the proteins followed by RP-nanoLC separation in combination with matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOF MS) or on the combination of in-solution isoelectric focusing (IEF) with ESI-nanoLC-MS/MS of the IEF separated peptides. In total, we found and unambiguously identified 331 unique proteins. The overlap between different techniques was about 10%, showing that the use of multiple proteomic approaches is beneficial to yield a better coverage of the proteome. Furthermore, the overlap between the CPE extracted hydrophilic and hydrophobic proteins was rather small (9-16%), indicating an efficient sample preparation technique to extract and separate hydrophilic and hydrophobic proteins from brain tissue. The percentage of identified membrane proteins was 27%, which is in accordance to the fact that about one-third of all genes in various organisms encode for this class of proteins. The results indicate that cloud point extraction is a promising sample preparation tool, which allows simultaneous in depth studies of brain derived membrane proteins as well as hydrophilic proteins. This technique can be very useful when studying human central nervous system (CNS) tissue or animal models of neurological diseases.

Mammalian Proteasome Subpopulations with Distinct Molecular Compositions and Proteolytic Activities

The proteasome-dependent protein degradation participates in multiple essential cellular processes. Modulation of proteasomal activities may alter cardiac function and disease phenotypes. However, cardiovascular studies reported thus far have yielded conflicting results. We hypothesized that a contributing factor to the contradicting literature may be caused by existing proteasome heterogeneity in the myocardium. In this investigation, we provide the very first direct demonstration of distinct proteasome subpopulations in murine hearts. The cardiac proteasome subpopulations differ in their molecular compositions and proteolytic activities. Furthermore they were distinguished from proteasome subpopulations identified in murine livers. The study was facilitated by the development of novel protocols for in-solution isoelectric focusing of multiprotein complexes in a laminar flow that support an average resolution of 0.04 pH units. Utilizing these protocols, the majority of cardiac proteasome complexes displayed an isoelectric point of 5.26 with additional subpopulations focusing in the range from pH 5.10 to 5.33. In contrast, the majority of hepatic 20 S proteasomes had a pI of 5.05 and focused from pH 5.01 to 5.29. Importantly proteasome subpopulations degraded specific model peptides with different turnover rates. Among cardiac subpopulations, proteasomes with an approximate pI of 5.21 showed 40% higher trypsin-like activity than those with pI 5.28. Distinct proteasome assembly may be a contributing factor to variations in proteolytic activities because proteasomes with pI 5.21 contained 58% less of the inducible subunit beta 2i compared with those with pI 5.28. In addition, dephosphorylation of 20 S proteasomes demonstrated that besides molecular composition posttranslational modifications largely contribute to their pI values. These data suggest the possibility of mixed 20 S proteasome assembly, a departure from the currently hypothesized two subpopulations: constitutive and immuno forms. The identification of multiple distinct proteasome subpopulations in heart provides key mechanistic insights for achieving selective and targeted regulation of this essential protein degradation machinery. Thus, proteasome subpopulations may serve as novel therapeutic targets in the myocardium.

Isolation of Phosphopeptides by pI-Difference-Based Electrophoresis

Effective proteomics studies of protein phosphorylation require an efficient enrichment method for phosphopeptides, which remains a challenge. Here, we describe the discovery of pI differences between methylated phosphopeptides (typically <7.4) and methylated nonphosphorylated peptides (typically >9.0). This pI difference allows isolation of methylated phosphopeptides from the methylated nonphosphopeptides by in-solution isoelectric focusing. We proved the principle of such a novel approach by isolating a phosphorylated peptide from nonphosphorylated tryptic digest of myoglobin. While the principle for pI-based, in-solution electrophoresis is proven, it requires further development for practical application. The method described here provides a stepping stone toward more reliable, convenient method for efficient isolation of phosphopeptides.

Identification of N-Linked Glycoproteins in Human Saliva by Glycoprotein Capture and Mass Spectrometry

Glycoproteins make up a major and important part of the salivary proteome and play a vital role in maintaining the health of the oral cavity. Because changes in the physiological state of a person are reflected as changes in the glycoproteome composition, mapping the salivary glycoproteome will provide insights into various processes in the body. Salivary glycoproteins were identified by the hydrazide coupling and release method. In this approach, glycoproteins were coupled onto a hydrazide resin, the proteins were then digested and formerly N-glycosylated peptides were selectively released with the enzyme PNGase F and analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Employing this method, coupled with in-solution isoelectric focusing separation as an additional means for pre-fractionation, we identified 84 formerly N-glycosylated peptides from 45 unique N-glycoproteins. Of these, 16 glycoproteins have not been reported previously in saliva. In addition, we identified 44 new sites of N-linked glycosylation on the proteins.

Fractionation of peptides and identification of proteins from Saccharomyces cerevisiae in proteomics with the use of reversed-phase capillary liquid chromatography and pI-based approach

The aim of the work was to explore the identification of proteins from Saccharomyces cerevisiae using combined capillary reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) and in-solution isoelectric focusing (sIEF) for fractionation of peptides prior to mass spectrometry analysis. That method was proved to be the alternative separation method for complex mixtures of protein tryptic digests in proteomics. Analysis of the identification of peptides was performed with the use of electrospray ionization-ion trap tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-IT-MS/MS). First, the sIEF fractionation was carried out prior to separation and mass spectrometry identification by nano-LC/ESI-MS/MS instrument. The proposed approach based on sIEF and nano-LC/ESI-MS/MS analysis was proved to be an efficient and accurate alternative fractionation method of complex protein digests and can be considered as the useful tool for identification of proteins. Moreover, analytical information from that approach can be considered as the additional source of database matching constraint and can be valuable tool for analytical and bioinformatics studies of peptides fractionation in proteomics. Based on the MS/MS results obtained with ESI-IT-MS/MS instrument, 851 proteins from S. cerevisiae were identified. However, after careful analysis of the data reduction in number of proteins to 126 was obtained. Those results are discussed and interpreted in the view of the evaluation method used.

Fractionation of peptides in proteomics with the use of pI-based approach and ZipTip pipette tips

The aim of the work was to explore the utility of the in-solution isoelectric focusing (sIEF) fractionation method. That method was proved to be the alternative separation method of mixtures of protein tryptic digests in proteomics. Analysis of the identification of peptides was performed with the use of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS). For that research, previously designed the miniaturized multi-chamber fractionation sIEF device (75μl volume for each chamber) based on polyacrylamide gel membranes with immobilines technology was utilized. To evaluate the efficiency and accuracy of sIEF fractionation combined with MS/MS peptides identification, bovine serum albumin (BSA) digest and mixture of five proteins digest were used.First, fractionation of bovine serum albumin digest sample was performed using sIEF method. Studies performed for that simple mixture of peptides proved the ability of the sIEF device to focus peptides mostly in one chamber. Additionally performed the correlation analysis between pIcalc and pIexp values for identified peptides proved the possibility to obtain experimentally useful high correlation. That information was found to have a potential value for construction of additional constraint during false positives evaluation process among identified proteins. Next, studies on the sIEF fractionation were combined with the evaluation of practical use of ZipTip pipette tips to fractionate peptides in the case of simple mixture of proteins. For this, five proteins digest samples were used. The analysis without prior any fractionation enabled to identify very limited number of proteins. The significant improvement was obtained when one used sIEF alone or with combination with ZipTips fractionation prior to MS analysis. The proposed approach based on in-solution isoelectric focusing proved to be an efficient and accurate alternative fractionation method of protein digests and can be considered as the first useful dimension in two-dimensional proteomics separations. Moreover, analytical information from that pI-based fractionation method can be considered as the additional source of database matching constraint. It can also be a valuable tool for analytical and bioinformatic studies of peptides fractionation in proteomics.