Background: Protein cysteine oxidation is substantially involved in various biological and pathogenic processes, but its implications in pancreatic cancer development remains poorly understood.
Methods and results: In this study, we performed a global characterization of protein oxidation targets in PDAC cells through iodoTMT-based quantitative proteomics, which identified over 4300 oxidized cysteine sites in more than 2100 proteins in HPDE6c7 and PANC-1 cells. Among them, 1715 cysteine residues were shown to be differentially oxidized between HPDE6c7 and PANC-1 cells. Also, charged amino acids including aspartate, glutamate and lysine were significantly overrepresented in flanking sequences of oxidized cysteines. Differentially oxidized proteins in PANC-1 cells were enriched in multiple cancer-related biological processes and signaling pathways. Specifically, the HIF-1 signaling proteins exhibited significant oxidation alterations in PANC-1 cells, and the reduced PHD2 oxidation in human PDAC tissues was correlated with lower survival time in pancreatic cancer patients.
Conclusion: These investigations provided new insights into protein oxidation-regulated signaling and biological processes during PDAC pathogenesis, which might be further explored for pancreatic cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Keywords: PANC-1; Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; Protein cysteine oxidation; Redox proteomics; iodoTMT.
© 2024. The Author(s).