Metaproteomic analysis of air particulate matter provides information about the abundance and properties of bioaerosols in the atmosphere and their influence on climate and public health. We developed and applied efficient methods for the extraction and analysis of proteins from glass fiber filter samples of total, coarse, and fine particulate matter. Size exclusion chromatography was applied to remove matrix components, and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) was applied for protein fractionation according to molecular size, followed by in-gel digestion and LC-MS/MS analysis of peptides using a hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap MS. Maxquant software and the Swiss-Prot database were used for protein identification. In samples collected at a suburban location in central Europe, we found proteins that originated mainly from plants, fungi, and bacteria, which constitute a major fraction of primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP) in the atmosphere. Allergenic proteins were found in coarse and fine particle samples, and indications for atmospheric degradation of proteins were observed. Graphical abstract Workflow for the metaproteomic analysis of atmospheric aerosol samples.
Keywords: Atmospheric aerosols; Bioanalytical methods; HPLC; Mass spectrometry; Metaproteomics.