Characteristics of Potassium Prolinate + Water + Ethanol Solution as a Phase Changing Absorbent for CO₂ Capture

Potassium prolinate + water + ethanol (ProK/W/Eth) solution has potential use as a liquid-to-solid phase-changing absorbent for energy-efficient CO₂ capture process. In this study, the equilibrium solubility of CO₂ in ProK/W/Eth solutions was measured in a stirred equilibrium cell at a temperature range from 293 to 343 K and CO₂ partial pressures up to 200 kPa. Density and viscosity were also measured at temperatures from 293 to 333 K and ProK molality up to 6.09 mol·kg^–1 ethanol. Moreover, the CO₂ loading and cyclic capacity were compared with aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA) and aqueous ProK solution. The solubility data were well-represented using a Soft model with AAD within 8.0%. The data of density and viscosity were also correlated with empirical models. The predicted results matched well the experimental data with AAD within 0.37% for density and 1.38% for viscosity

Physicochemical Properties of Aqueous Potassium Salts of Basic Amino Acids as Absorbents for CO₂ Capture

Aqueous amino acid salt (AAS) solutions could be attractive absorbents for CO₂ removal from flue gases. Density, viscosity, and solubility of N₂O in aqueous potassium salts of lysine, histidine, and arginine were measured over the temperature range from (293 to 353) K and molality concentration range from (0.26 to 3.6) mol·kg^–1. Experimental results were correlated well with empirical correlations. The ion specific parameters (<i>h</i>_AA^–), based on the Weisenberger and Schumpe model, were fitted using the solubility data of N₂O in the aforementioned AAS systems, valid up to 328 K. The models using temperature dependence of <i>h</i>_AA^– predict well within 2.5% AAD. The physical solubility of CO₂ in the aqueous AAS solutions was also estimated

Kinetics of CO₂ Absorption into Aqueous Basic Amino Acid Salt: Potassium Salt of Lysine Solution

Aqueous amino acid salts are considered as an attractive alternative to alkanolamine solvents (e.g., MEA) for carbon dioxide (CO₂) absorption. The kinetics of CO₂ into unloaded aqueous solutions of potassium lysinate (LysK) was studied using a wetted wall column at concentrations ranging from 0.25 to 2.0 M and temperatures from 298 to 333 K. Physicochemical properties of aqueous LysK solutions such as density, viscosity, and physical solubility of CO₂ were measured to evaluate the reaction rate constants. The reaction pathway is described using zwitterion mechanism taking into account the effect of ionic strength on the reaction rate. Under the fast pseudo-first-order regime, the reaction rate parameters were obtained and correlated in a power-law reaction rate expression. LysK shows higher chemical reactivity toward CO₂ than the industrial standard MEA and most of amino acid salts. Its reaction rate constants increase considerably with concentration and temperature. The reaction order is found to be an average value of 1.58 with respect to LysK. The forward second-order kinetic rate constant, <i>k</i>₂⁰, are obtained as 31615 and 84822 m³ kmol^–1 s^–1 at 298 and 313 K, respectively with activation energy of 51.0 kJ mol^–1. The contribution of water to the zwitterion deprotonation seems to be more significant than that of LysK for the above-mentioned kinetic conditions

Monolithic Capillary Column Based Glycoproteomic Reactor for High-Sensitive Analysis of N‑Glycoproteome

Despite the importance of protein N-glycosylation in a series of biological processes, in-depth characterization of protein glycosylation is still a challenge due to the high complexity of biological samples and the lacking of highly sensitive detection technologies. We developed a monolithic capillary column based glycoproteomic reactor enabling high-sensitive mapping of N-glycosylation sites from minute amounts of sample. Unlike the conventional proteomic reactors with only strong-cation exchange or hydrophilic-interaction chromatography columns, this novel glycoproteomic reactor was composed of an 8 cm long C12 hydrophobic monolithic capillary column for protein digestion and a 6 cm long organic–silica hybrid hydrophilic monolithic capillary column for glycopeptides enrichment and deglycosylation, which could complete whole-sample preparation including protein purification/desalting, tryptic digestion, enrichment, and deglycosylation of glycopeptides within about 3 h. The developed reactor exhibited high detection sensitivity in mapping of N-glycosylation sites by detection limit of horseradish peroxidase as low as 2.5 fmol. This reactor also demonstrated the ability in complex sample analysis, and in total, 486 unique N-glycosylation sites were reliably mapped in three replicate analyses of a protein sample extracted from ∼10⁴ HeLa cells

Monolithic Capillary Column Based Glycoproteomic Reactor for High-Sensitive Analysis of N‑Glycoproteome

Despite the importance of protein N-glycosylation in a series of biological processes, in-depth characterization of protein glycosylation is still a challenge due to the high complexity of biological samples and the lacking of highly sensitive detection technologies. We developed a monolithic capillary column based glycoproteomic reactor enabling high-sensitive mapping of N-glycosylation sites from minute amounts of sample. Unlike the conventional proteomic reactors with only strong-cation exchange or hydrophilic-interaction chromatography columns, this novel glycoproteomic reactor was composed of an 8 cm long C12 hydrophobic monolithic capillary column for protein digestion and a 6 cm long organic–silica hybrid hydrophilic monolithic capillary column for glycopeptides enrichment and deglycosylation, which could complete whole-sample preparation including protein purification/desalting, tryptic digestion, enrichment, and deglycosylation of glycopeptides within about 3 h. The developed reactor exhibited high detection sensitivity in mapping of N-glycosylation sites by detection limit of horseradish peroxidase as low as 2.5 fmol. This reactor also demonstrated the ability in complex sample analysis, and in total, 486 unique N-glycosylation sites were reliably mapped in three replicate analyses of a protein sample extracted from ∼10⁴ HeLa cells

Monolithic Capillary Column Based Glycoproteomic Reactor for High-Sensitive Analysis of N‑Glycoproteome

Despite the importance of protein N-glycosylation in a series of biological processes, in-depth characterization of protein glycosylation is still a challenge due to the high complexity of biological samples and the lacking of highly sensitive detection technologies. We developed a monolithic capillary column based glycoproteomic reactor enabling high-sensitive mapping of N-glycosylation sites from minute amounts of sample. Unlike the conventional proteomic reactors with only strong-cation exchange or hydrophilic-interaction chromatography columns, this novel glycoproteomic reactor was composed of an 8 cm long C12 hydrophobic monolithic capillary column for protein digestion and a 6 cm long organic–silica hybrid hydrophilic monolithic capillary column for glycopeptides enrichment and deglycosylation, which could complete whole-sample preparation including protein purification/desalting, tryptic digestion, enrichment, and deglycosylation of glycopeptides within about 3 h. The developed reactor exhibited high detection sensitivity in mapping of N-glycosylation sites by detection limit of horseradish peroxidase as low as 2.5 fmol. This reactor also demonstrated the ability in complex sample analysis, and in total, 486 unique N-glycosylation sites were reliably mapped in three replicate analyses of a protein sample extracted from ∼10⁴ HeLa cells

A Comprehensive Differential Proteomic Study of Nitrate Deprivation in <i>Arabidopsis</i> Reveals Complex Regulatory Networks of Plant Nitrogen Responses

Nitrogen (N) is an important nutrient and signal for plant growth and development. However, to date, our knowledge of how plants sense and transduce the N signals is very limited. To better understand the molecular mechanisms of plant N responses, we took two-dimensional gel-based proteomic and phosphoproteomic approaches to profile the proteins with abundance and phosphorylation state changes during nitrate deprivation and recovery in the model plant <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i>. After 7-day-old seedlings were N-deprived for up to 48 h followed by 24 h recovery, a total of 170 and 38 proteins were identified with significant changes in abundance and phosphorylation state, respectively. Bioinformatic analyses implicate these proteins in diverse cellular processes including N and protein metabolisms, photosynthesis, cytoskeleton, redox homeostasis, and signal transduction. Functional studies of the selected nitrate-responsive proteins indicate that the proteasome regulatory subunit RPT5a and the cytoskeleton protein Tubulin alpha-6 (TUA6) play important roles in plant nitrate responses by regulating plant N use efficiency (NUE) and low nitrate-induced anthocyanin biosynthesis, respectively. In conclusion, our study provides novel insights into plant responses to nitrate at the proteome level, which are expected to be highly useful for dissecting the N response pathways in higher plants and for improving plant NUE

Determination of CK2 Specificity and Substrates by Proteome-Derived Peptide Libraries

Understanding the specificity of kinases enables prediction of their substrates and uncovering kinase functions in signaling pathways. Traditionally synthesized peptide libraries are used to determine the kinase specificity. In this study, a proteomics-based method was developed to determine the specificity of kinase by taking the advantages of proteome-derived peptide libraries and quantitative proteomics. Proteome-derived peptide libraries were constructed by digesting proteins in total cell lysate followed with dephosphorylation of the resulting peptides. After incubating the peptide libraries with/without CK2 for in vitro kinase assay, stable isotopic labeling based quantitative phosphoproteomics was applied to distinguish the in vitro phosphosites generated by CK2. By using the above approach, 404 CK2 in vitro phosphosites were identified by 1D LC–MS/MS. Those sites allowed the statistic determination of the CK2 specificity. In addition to the easy construction of the proteome-derived peptide library, another significant advantage of this method over the method with synthesized peptide libraries is that the identified phosphosites could be directly mapped to proteins for the screening of putative kinase substrates. It was found that the confidence for substrate identification could be significantly improved by comparing the in vitro CK2 sites with the in vivo sites identified by phosphoproteomics analysis of the same cell lines. By applying this integrated strategy, 138 phosphosites from 105 putative CK2 substrates of high confidence were determined

Selective Enrichment of Cysteine-Containing Phosphopeptides for Subphosphoproteome Analysis

Among the natural amino acids, cysteine is unique since it can form a disulfide bond through oxidation and reduction of sulfhydryl and thus plays a pervasive role in modulation of proteins activities and structures. Crosstalk between phosphorylation and other post-translational modifications has become a recurrent theme in cell signaling regulation. However, the crosstalk between the phosphorylation and the formation and reductive cleavage of disulfide bond has not been investigated so far. To facilitate the study of this crosstalk, it is important to explore the subset of phosphoproteome where phosphorylations are occurred near to cysteine in the protein sequences. In this study, we developed a straightforward sequential enrichment method by combining the thiol affinity chromatography with the immobilized titanium ion affinity chromatography to selectively enrich cysteine-containing phosphopeptides. The high specificity and high sensitivity of this method were demonstrated by analyzing the samples of Jurkat cells. This “divide and conquer” strategy by specific analysis of a subphosphoproteome enables identification of more low abundant phosphosites than the conventional global phosphoproteome approach. Interestingly, amino acid residues surrounding the identified phosphosites were enriched with buried residues (L, V, A, C) while depleted with exposed residues (D, E, R, K). Also, the phosphosites identified by this approach showed a dramatic decrease in locating in disorder regions compared to that identified by conventional global phosphoproteome. Further analysis showed that more proline directed kinases and fewer acidophilic kinases were responsible for the phosphorylation sites of this subphosphoproteome

Selective Enrichment of Cysteine-Containing Phosphopeptides for Subphosphoproteome Analysis

Among the natural amino acids, cysteine is unique since it can form a disulfide bond through oxidation and reduction of sulfhydryl and thus plays a pervasive role in modulation of proteins activities and structures. Crosstalk between phosphorylation and other post-translational modifications has become a recurrent theme in cell signaling regulation. However, the crosstalk between the phosphorylation and the formation and reductive cleavage of disulfide bond has not been investigated so far. To facilitate the study of this crosstalk, it is important to explore the subset of phosphoproteome where phosphorylations are occurred near to cysteine in the protein sequences. In this study, we developed a straightforward sequential enrichment method by combining the thiol affinity chromatography with the immobilized titanium ion affinity chromatography to selectively enrich cysteine-containing phosphopeptides. The high specificity and high sensitivity of this method were demonstrated by analyzing the samples of Jurkat cells. This “divide and conquer” strategy by specific analysis of a subphosphoproteome enables identification of more low abundant phosphosites than the conventional global phosphoproteome approach. Interestingly, amino acid residues surrounding the identified phosphosites were enriched with buried residues (L, V, A, C) while depleted with exposed residues (D, E, R, K). Also, the phosphosites identified by this approach showed a dramatic decrease in locating in disorder regions compared to that identified by conventional global phosphoproteome. Further analysis showed that more proline directed kinases and fewer acidophilic kinases were responsible for the phosphorylation sites of this subphosphoproteome