N-glycosylation is a crucial post-translational modification (PTM) and plays essential roles in biological processes. Several methods have been developed for the relative quantification of N-glycosylation at the proteome scale. However, the proportion of N-glycosylated forms in a total protein population, or the "N-glycosylation stoichiometry", varies greatly among proteins or cellular states and is frequently missing due to the lack of robust technologies. In the present study, we developed a data-independent acquisition (DIA)-based strategy that enabled the in-depth measurement of N-glycosylation stoichiometry. A spectral library containing 3,509 N-glycosylated peptides and 17,525 fragment ions from human embryonic kidney cells 293 (HEK-293) cells was established from which the stoichiometries of 1,186 N-glycosites were calculated. These stoichiometric values differ greatly among different glycosites, and many glycosites tend to occur with low stoichiometry. We then investigated the N-glycosylation changes induced by tunicamycin in HEK-293 cells and by a temperature shift in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Quantifying the proteome, N-glycoproteome, and N-glycosylation stoichiometry demonstrated that the regulation of N-glycosylation is primarily achieved by adjusting the N-glycosylation stoichiometry. In total, the stoichiometries of 2,274 glycosites were determined in the current study. Notably, our approach can be applied to other biological systems and other types of PTMs.
Keywords: N-glycosylation; data-independent acquisition (DIA); mass spectrometry; post-translational modifications (PTMs); proteomics; quantification; sequential window acquisition of all theoretical mass spectra (SWATH); spectral library; stable isotope labeling with amino acids in cell culture (SILAC); stoichiometry.