Reimagining high-throughput profiling of reactive cysteines for cell-based screening of large electrophile libraries

Nat Biotechnol. 2021 May;39(5):630-641. doi: 10.1038/s41587-020-00778-3. Epub 2021 Jan 4.

Abstract

Current methods used for measuring amino acid side-chain reactivity lack the throughput needed to screen large chemical libraries for interactions across the proteome. Here we redesigned the workflow for activity-based protein profiling of reactive cysteine residues by using a smaller desthiobiotin-based probe, sample multiplexing, reduced protein starting amounts and software to boost data acquisition in real time on the mass spectrometer. Our method, streamlined cysteine activity-based protein profiling (SLC-ABPP), achieved a 42-fold improvement in sample throughput, corresponding to profiling library members at a depth of >8,000 reactive cysteine sites at 18 min per compound. We applied it to identify proteome-wide targets of covalent inhibitors to mutant Kirsten rat sarcoma (KRAS)G12C and Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK). In addition, we created a resource of cysteine reactivity to 285 electrophiles in three human cell lines, which includes >20,000 cysteines from >6,000 proteins per line. The goal of proteome-wide profiling of cysteine reactivity across thousand-member libraries under several cellular contexts is now within reach.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Agammaglobulinaemia Tyrosine Kinase / genetics
  • Amino Acids / genetics*
  • Antioxidant Response Elements / genetics*
  • Cysteine / genetics*
  • Humans
  • Mass Spectrometry
  • Proteome / genetics*
  • Proteomics / trends
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins p21(ras) / genetics

Substances

  • Amino Acids
  • KRAS protein, human
  • Proteome
  • Agammaglobulinaemia Tyrosine Kinase
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins p21(ras)
  • Cysteine