Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecular Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi'an 710127, P. R. China.
Anal Chem. 2023 May 2;95(17):6989-6995. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.3c00406. Epub 2023 Apr 21.
Among the various types of post-translational modifications (PTMs), methylation is the simple functionalized one that regulates the functions of proteins and affects interactions of protein-protein and protein-DNA/RNA, which will further influence diverse cellular processes. The methylation modification has only a slight effect on the size and hydrophobicity of proteins or peptides, and it cannot change their net charges at all, so the methods for recognizing methylated protein are still limited. Here, we designed a recognition receptor consisting of a α-hemolysin (α-HL) nanopore and polyamine decorated γ-cyclodextrin (amγ-CD) to differentiate the methylation of peptide derived from a heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein at the single molecule level. The results indicate that the modification of a methyl group enhances the interaction between the peptide and the recognition receptor. The results of molecular simulations were consistent with the experiments; the methylated peptide interacts with the receptor strongly due to the more formation of hydrogen bonds. This proposed strategy also can be used to detect PTM in real biological samples and possesses the advantages of low-cost and high sensitivity and is label-free. Furthermore, the success in the construction of this recognition receptor will greatly facilitate the investigation of pathogenesis related to methylated arginine.
在各种类型的翻译后修饰(PTMs)中,甲基化是一种简单的功能化修饰,它调节蛋白质的功能,并影响蛋白质-蛋白质和蛋白质-DNA/RNA 的相互作用,从而进一步影响多种细胞过程。甲基化修饰对蛋白质或肽的大小和疏水性只有很小的影响,根本不会改变它们的净电荷,因此识别甲基化蛋白质的方法仍然有限。在这里,我们设计了一种由α-溶血素(α-HL)纳米孔和多胺修饰的γ-环糊精(amγ-CD)组成的识别受体,以在单分子水平上区分来自异质核核糖核蛋白的肽的甲基化。结果表明,甲基化修饰增强了肽与识别受体之间的相互作用。分子模拟的结果与实验一致;由于形成更多氢键,甲基化肽与受体强烈相互作用。该策略还可用于检测真实生物样品中的 PTM,并具有成本低、灵敏度高和无标记的优点。此外,成功构建这种识别受体将极大地促进与甲基化精氨酸相关的发病机制的研究。