Rapid online nonenzymatic protein digestion combining microwave heating acid hydrolysis and electrochemical oxidation

Anal Chem. 2011 Jan 1;83(1):359-67. doi: 10.1021/ac1024705. Epub 2010 Dec 7.

Abstract

We report an online nonenzymatic method for site-specific digestion of proteins to yield peptides that are well suited for collision-induced dissociation tandem mass spectrometry. The method combines online microwave heating acid hydrolysis at aspartic acid and online electrochemical oxidation at tryptophan and tyrosine. The combined microwave/electrochemical digestion is reproducible and produces peptides with an average sequence length of 10 amino acids. This peptide length is similar to the average peptide length of 9 amino acids obtained by digestion of proteins with the enzyme trypsin. As a result, the peptides produced by this novel nonenzymatic digestion method, when analyzed by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, produce protonated molecules with mostly +1 and +2 charge states. The combination of these two nonenzymatic methods overcomes shortcomings with each individual method in that (i) peptides generated by the microwave-hydrolysis method have an average amino acid length of 16 amino acids and (ii) the electrochemical-cleavage method is unable to reproducibly digest proteins with molecular masses above 4 kDa. Preliminary results are presented on the application and utility of this rapid online digestion (total of 6 min of digestion time) on a series of standard peptides and proteins as well as an Escherichia coli protein extract.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Cattle
  • Chromatography, Liquid
  • Disulfides / chemistry
  • Electrochemistry
  • Escherichia coli / cytology
  • Hot Temperature*
  • Humans
  • Hydrolysis
  • Kinetics
  • Microwaves*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Oxidation-Reduction
  • Peptide Fragments / chemistry
  • Peptide Fragments / metabolism
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteins / metabolism*
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Substances

  • Disulfides
  • Peptide Fragments
  • Proteins