MS in occupational and environmental health

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Mixed-Bed Ion Exchange Chromatography Employing a Salt-Free pH Gradient for Improved Sensitivity and Compatibility in MudPIT

In proteomics, comprehensive analysis of peptides mixtures necessitates multiple dimensions of separation prior to mass spectrometry analysis to reduce sample complexity and increase the dynamic range of analysis. The main goal of this work was to improve the performance of (online) multidimensional protein identification technology (MudPIT) in terms of sensitivity, compatibility and recovery. The method employs weak anion and strong cation mixed-bed ion exchange chromatography (ACE) in the first separation dimension and reversed phase chromatography (RP) in the second separation dimension (Motoyama et.al. Anal. Chem 2007, 79, 3623–34.). We demonstrated that the chromatographic behavior of peptides in ACE chromatography depends on both the WAX/SCX mixing ratio as the ionic strength of the mobile phase system. This property allowed us to replace the conventional salt gradient by a (discontinuous) salt-free, pH gradient. First dimensional separation of peptides was accomplished with mixtures of aqueous formic acid and dimethylsulfoxide with increasing concentrations. The overall performance of this mobile phase system was found comparable to ammonium acetate buffers in application to ACE chromatography, but clearly outperformed strong cation exchange for use in first dimensional peptide separation. The dramatically improved compatibility between (salt-free) ion exchange chromatography and reversed phase chromatography–mass spectrometry allowed us to downscale the dimensions of the RP analytical column down to 25 μm i.d. for an additional 2- to 3-fold improvement in performance compared to current technology. The achieved levels of sensitivity, orthogonality, and compatibility demonstrates the potential of salt-free ACE MudPIT for the ultrasensitive, multidimensional analysis of very modest amounts of sample material

A new method for the determination of L-DOPA and 3-O-methyldopa in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid using gas chromatography and electron capture negative ion mass spectrometry

L-3-(3,4-Dihydroxyphenyl)alanine (DOPA) and its 3-O-methyl metabolite (OMD) were measured in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid by a new assay which combines N, O-acetylation of amino acids in aqueous media, preparation of pentafluorobenzyl esters under anhydrous conditions, and analysis by gas chromatography-electron capture negative ion mass spectrometry. The N, O-acetyl, carboxy-PFB derivatives gave abundant carboxylate anions ([M-CH2C6F5]-) which were suitable for sensitive analysis using selected ion monitoring. Plasma and CSF samples were sufficiently purified by a simple organic solvent extraction. Analytical recovery for DOPA was 100.2 ± 3.7% at the level of 100 nmol/l. Analysis of DOPA in plasma was performed with a relative standard deviation of 5%. The limit of quantitation in plasma and CSF was at the sub-nmol/l level. In healthy adults, DOPA concentration in plasma was 9.0 ± 2 nmol/l (n = 11) and in CSF 3.5 ± 0.9 nmol/l (n = 9). The concentration of OMD in plasma was 99.1 nmol/l (pool of 24 samples) and 15.3 nmol/l in CSF (pool of 12 samples). Measurement of 5-[2H]DOPA and 5-[2H]OMD in plasma of a healthy individual who had been orally loaded with 3,5-[2H2]tyrosine (150 mg kg body wt) was possible for several hours after the load

Unbiased Selective Isolation of Protein N-Terminal Peptides from Complex Proteome Samples Using Phospho Tagging PTAG) and TiO2-based Depletion

A positional proteomics strategy for global N-proteome analysis is presented based on phospho tagging (PTAG) of internal peptides followed by depletion by titanium dioxide (TiO2) affinity chromatography. Therefore, N-terminal and lysine amino groups are initially completely dimethylated with formaldehyde at the protein level, after which the proteins are digested and the newly formed internal peptides modified with the PTAG reagent glyceraldhyde-3-phosphate in nearly perfect yields (> 99%). The resulting phosphopeptides are depleted through binding onto TiO2, keeping exclusively a set of N-acetylated and/or N-dimethylated terminal peptides for analysis by LC-MS/MS. Analysis of peptides derivatized with differentially labeled isotopic analogous of the PTAG reagent revealed a high depletion efficiency (> 95%). The method enabled identification of 753 unique N-terminal peptides (428 proteins) in N. meningitidis and 928 unique N-terminal peptides (572 proteins) in S cerevisiae. These included verified neo-N-termini from subcellular relocalized membrane and mitochondrial proteins. The presented PTAG approach is therefore a novel versatile and robust method for mass spectrometry-based N-proteome analysis and identification of protease-generated cleavage product

Unbiased Selective Isolation of Protein N-Terminal Peptides from Complex Proteome Samples Using Phospho Tagging PTAG) and TiO2-based Depletion

A positional proteomics strategy for global N-proteome analysis is presented based on phospho tagging (PTAG) of internal peptides followed by depletion by titanium dioxide (TiO2) affinity chromatography. Therefore, N-terminal and lysine amino groups are initially completely dimethylated with formaldehyde at the protein level, after which the proteins are digested and the newly formed internal peptides modified with the PTAG reagent glyceraldhyde-3-phosphate in nearly perfect yields (> 99%). The resulting phosphopeptides are depleted through binding onto TiO2, keeping exclusively a set of N-acetylated and/or N-dimethylated terminal peptides for analysis by LC-MS/MS. Analysis of peptides derivatized with differentially labeled isotopic analogous of the PTAG reagent revealed a high depletion efficiency (> 95%). The method enabled identification of 753 unique N-terminal peptides (428 proteins) in N. meningitidis and 928 unique N-terminal peptides (572 proteins) in S cerevisiae. These included verified neo-N-termini from subcellular relocalized membrane and mitochondrial proteins. The presented PTAG approach is therefore a novel versatile and robust method for mass spectrometry-based N-proteome analysis and identification of protease-generated cleavage product