Mass spectrometry-based glycoproteomic approach involving lysine derivatization for structural characterization of recombinant human erythropoietin

J Proteome Res. 2006 Nov;5(11):3066-76. doi: 10.1021/pr060177d.

Abstract

Lysine-containing peptides comprising glycosylation sites derived from recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) by trypsin or Lys-C and PNGase F dual digestion were derivatized with 2-methoxy-4,5-dihydro-1H-imidazole and its deuterated analogues. In the same reaction, under reducing conditions (beta-mercaptoethanol), cysteines were converted into methyl-cysteines and lysines into Lys-4,5-dihydro-1H-imidazole. Both modifications on cysteines and lysines simplified the CID-MS/MS spectra, while preserving the structural information by yielding y-series ions and improved the mass spectral signal intensity up to 25 times. Moreover, by this approach, the N-glycan occupation sites were unambiguously determined. O-Glycosylation sites as well as O-glycan structures were determined by a LC-MS/MS experiment carried out on dually digested rHuEPO. N-Glycan mixture purified on a graphitized carbon column using a newly developed method that extracted only sialylated carbohydrates was analyzed first using MALDI-TOF in negative linear ion mode with low mass accuracy but without interferences and metastabile ions and then a reflectron with high mass accuracy. After defining the precursor ions, we performed the nanoESI QTOF MS/MS analysis on N-glycans, mainly targeting the distinction between carbohydrates with sialylated antennae and those lacking sialic acid moieties.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Cysteine
  • Deuterium
  • Erythropoietin / chemistry*
  • Erythropoietin / isolation & purification
  • Glycoproteins / chemistry*
  • Glycoproteins / isolation & purification
  • Glycosylation
  • Humans
  • Lysine*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Peptide Fragments / chemistry
  • Polysaccharides / chemistry
  • Polysaccharides / isolation & purification
  • Proteomics / methods*
  • Recombinant Proteins / chemistry
  • Recombinant Proteins / isolation & purification
  • Trypsin

Substances

  • Glycoproteins
  • Peptide Fragments
  • Polysaccharides
  • Recombinant Proteins
  • Erythropoietin
  • Deuterium
  • Trypsin
  • Lysine
  • Cysteine