Mass spectrometric proteomics is an effective approach for identifying and quantifying histone post-translational modifications (PTMs) and their binding proteins, especially in the cases of methylation and acetylation. However, another vital PTM, phosphorylation, tends to be poorly quantified because it is easily lost and inefficiently ionized. In addition, PTM binding proteins for phosphorylation are sometimes resistant to identification because of their variable binding affinities. Here, we present our efforts to improve the sensitivity of detection of histone H4 tail peptide phosphorylated at serine 1 (H4S1ph) and our successful identification of an H4S1ph binder candidate by means of a chemical proteomics approach. Our nanoLC-MS/MS system permitted semi-quantitative label-free analysis of histone H4 PTM dynamics of cell cycle-synchronized HeLa S3 cells, including phosphorylation, methylation, and acetylation. We show that H4S1ph abundance on nascent histone H4 unmethylated at lysine 20 (H4K20me0) peaks from late S-phase to M-phase. We also attempted to characterize effects of phosphorylation at H4S1 on protein-protein interactions. Specially synthesized photoaffinity bait peptides specifically captured 14-3-3 proteins as novel H4S1ph binding partners, whose interaction was otherwise undetectable by conventional peptide pull-down experiments. This is the first report that analyzes dynamics of PTM pattern on the whole histone H4 tail during cell cycle and enables the identification of PTM binders with low affinities using high-resolution mass spectrometry and photo-affinity bait peptides.
Keywords: ETD; cell cycle; cross-linking; epigenetics; histone.