†Department of Biomedical Engineering, and ‡Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21231, United States.
Anal Chem. 2015;87(10):5181-8. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.5b00024. Epub 2015 May 6.
Glycoprotein changes occur in not only protein abundance but also the occupancy of each glycosylation site by different glycoforms during biological or pathological processes. Recent advances in mass spectrometry instrumentation and techniques have facilitated analysis of intact glycopeptides in complex biological samples by allowing the users to generate spectra of intact glycopeptides with glycans attached to each specific glycosylation site. However, assigning these spectra, leading to identification of the glycopeptides, is challenging. Here, we report an algorithm, named GPQuest, for site-specific identification of intact glycopeptides using higher-energy collisional dissociation (HCD) fragmentation of complex samples. In this algorithm, a spectral library of glycosite-containing peptides in the sample was built by analyzing the isolated glycosite-containing peptides using HCD LC-MS/MS. Spectra of intact glycopeptides were selected by using glycan oxonium ions as signature ions for glycopeptide spectra. These oxonium-ion-containing spectra were then compared with the spectral library generated from glycosite-containing peptides, resulting in assignment of each intact glycopeptide MS/MS spectrum to a specific glycosite-containing peptide. The glycan occupying each glycosite was determined by matching the mass difference between the precursor ion of intact glycopeptide and the glycosite-containing peptide to a glycan database. Using GPQuest, we analyzed LC-MS/MS spectra of protein extracts from prostate tumor LNCaP cells. Without enrichment of glycopeptides from global tryptic peptides and at a false discovery rate of 1%, 1008 glycan-containing MS/MS spectra were assigned to 769 unique intact N-linked glycopeptides, representing 344 N-linked glycosites with 57 different N-glycans. Spectral library matching using GPQuest assigns the HCD LC-MS/MS generated spectra of intact glycopeptides in an automated and high-throughput manner. Additionally, spectral library matching gives the user the possibility of identifying novel or modified glycans on specific glycosites that might be missing from the predetermined glycan databases.
糖蛋白在生物或病理过程中不仅会发生蛋白质丰度的变化,还会发生每个糖基化位点被不同糖型占据的情况。质谱仪器和技术的最新进展使得用户能够生成带有连接到每个特定糖基化位点的聚糖的完整糖肽的光谱,从而促进了复杂生物样品中完整糖肽的分析。然而,分配这些光谱,从而识别糖肽,具有挑战性。在这里,我们报告了一种名为 GPQuest 的算法,用于使用复杂样品中的高能量碰撞解离(HCD)碎裂对完整糖肽进行特定糖基位点鉴定。在该算法中,通过使用 HCD LC-MS/MS 分析分离的含有糖基的肽,构建了样品中含有糖基的肽的光谱库。通过使用糖肽光谱的糖氧鎓离子作为特征离子来选择完整糖肽的光谱。然后将这些含氧化合物离子的光谱与从含有糖基的肽生成的光谱库进行比较,从而将每个完整糖肽 MS/MS 光谱分配给特定的含有糖基的肽。通过将完整糖肽的前体离子与含有糖基的肽之间的质量差与糖数据库进行匹配,确定每个糖基化位点上占据的聚糖。使用 GPQuest,我们分析了前列腺肿瘤 LNCaP 细胞蛋白提取物的 LC-MS/MS 光谱。在未对来自全局胰蛋白酶肽的糖肽进行富集且假发现率为 1%的情况下,将 1008 个含有聚糖的 MS/MS 光谱分配给 769 个独特的完整 N-连接糖肽,代表 344 个 N-连接糖基化位点,具有 57 种不同的 N-聚糖。使用 GPQuest 进行光谱库匹配以自动化和高通量的方式分配完整糖肽的 HCD LC-MS/MS 生成的光谱。此外,光谱库匹配为用户提供了在预定糖数据库中可能缺失的特定糖基位点上识别新的或修饰的聚糖的可能性。