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Gerhard R Munske

Publications and source records attributed to Gerhard R Munske.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Collisionally activated dissociation and electron capture dissociation of several mass spectrometry-identifiable chemical cross-linkers.

One of the challenges in protein interaction studies with chemical cross-linking stems from the complexity of intra-, inter-, and dead-end cross-linked peptide mixtures. We have developed new cross-linkers to study protein-protein interactions with mass spectrometry to improve the ability to deal with this complexity. Even the accurate mass capabilities of FTICR-MS alone cannot unambiguously identify cross-linked peptides from cell-labeling experiments due to the complexity of these mixtures resultant from the enormous number of possible cross-linked species. We have developed novel cross-linkers that have unique fragmentation features in the gas phase. The characteristics of these cross-linkers combined with the accurate mass capability of FTICR-MS can help distinguish cross-linking reaction products and assign protein identities. These cross-linkers that we call protein interaction reporters (PIRs) have been constructed with two reactive groups attached through two bonds that can be preferentially cleaved by low-energy CID of the respective protonated precursor ions. After cleavage of the labile bonds, the middle part of the linker serves as a reporter ion to aid identification of cross-linked peptides. This report highlights three new PIRs with new features that have been developed to improve the efficiency of release of reporter ions. The new cross-linkers reported here were tuned with the addition of an affinity tag, a hydrophilic group, a photocleavable group, and new low-energy MS/MS cleavable bonds. This report presents our investigation of the MSMS fragmentation behavior of selected protonated ions of the new compounds. The comprehensive fragmentation of these PIRs and PIR-labeled cross-linked peptides with low-energy collisions and an example of electron capture dissociation in FTICR-MS is presented. These new cross-linkers will contribute to current systems biology research by allowing acquisition of global or large-scale data on protein-protein interactions.

Cross-Linking Reagents↗

Evaluation of low energy CID and ECD fragmentation behavior of mono-oxidized thio-ether bonds in peptides.

Thio-ether bonds in the cysteinyl side chain of peptides, formed with the most commonly used cysteine blocking reagent iodoacetamide, after conversion to sulfoxide, releases a neutral fragment mass in a low-energy MS/MS experiment in the gas phase of the mass spectrometer [6]. In this study, we show that the neutral loss fragments produced from the mono-oxidized thio-ether bonds (sulfoxide) in peptides, formed by alkyl halide or double-bond containing cysteine blocking reagents are different under low-energy MS/MS conditions. We have evaluated the low-energy fragmentation patterns of mono-oxidized modified peptides with different cysteine blocking reagents, such as iodoacetamide, 3-maleimidopropionic acid, and 4-vinylpyridine using FTICR-MS. We propose that the mechanisms of gas-phase fragmentation of mono-oxidized thio-ether bonds in the side chain of peptides, formed by iodoacetamide and double-bond containing cysteine blocking reagents, maleimide and vinylpyridine, are different because of the availability of acidic beta-hydrogens in these compounds. Moreover, we investigated the fragmentation characteristics of mono-oxidized thio-ether bonds within the peptide sequence to develop novel mass-spectrometry identifiable chemical cross-linkers. This methionine type of oxidized thio-ether bond within the peptide sequence did not show anticipated low-energy fragmentation. Electron capture dissociation (ECD) of the side chain thio-ether bond containing oxidized peptides was also studied. ECD spectra of the oxidized peptides showed a greater extent of peptide backbone cleavage, compared with CID spectra. This fragmentation information is critical to researchers for accurate data analysis of this undesired modification in proteomics research, as well as other methods that may utilize sulfoxide derivatives.

Electrons↗

Mass spectrometry identifiable cross-linking strategy for studying protein-protein interactions.

A new mass spectrometry identifiable cross-linking strategy has been developed to study protein-protein interactions. The new cross-linker was designed to have two low-energy MS/MS-cleavable bonds in the spacer chain to provide three primary benefits: First, a reporter tag can be released from cross-link due to cleavage of the two labile bonds in the spacer chain. Second, a relatively simple MS/MS spectrum can be generated owing to favorable cleavage of labile bonds. And finally, the cross-linked peptide chains are dissociated from each other, and each then can be fragmented separately to get sequence information. Therefore, this novel type of cross-linker was named protein interaction reporter (PIR). To this end, two RINK groups were utilized to make our first-generation cross-linker using solid-phase peptide synthesis chemistry. The RINK group contains a bond more labile than peptide bonds during low-energy activation. The new cross-linker was applied to cross-link ribonuclease S (RNase S), a noncovalent complex of S-peptide and S-protein. The results demonstrated that the new cross-linker effectively reacted with RNase S to generate various types of cross-linked products. More importantly, the cross-linked peptides successfully released reporter ions during selective MS/MS conditions, and the dissociated peptide chains remained intact during MS(2), thus enabling MS(3) to be performed subsequently. In addition, dead-end, intra-, and inter-cross-linked peptides can be distinguished by analyzing MS/MS spectra.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

A new maleimide-bound acid-cleavable solid-support reagent for profiling phosphorylation.

A new chemical strategy for phosphopeptide profiling is reported in this study. Phosphorylation represents one of the most important classes of posttranslational modifications of proteins. Here we report a generalized strategy that employs solid-phase capture and mass-encoding steps to selectively enrich phosphopeptides from complex mixtures. This method exploits conversion of phosphates into thiols and reactive compounds to selectively isolate products of phosphorylation. Selective isolation of phosphopeptides is achieved with a simple, novel, acid-cleavable, solid-support-bound maleimide reagent. Our chemistry efforts have focused on minimization of linker size and simplification of reagent production with incorporation of common solid-phase peptide synthesis steps. Relative quantitation was demonstrated by modifying phosphopeptides with incorporation of ethanedithiol and propanedithiol. We observed that appropriate normalization is necessary to utilize mass tag strategies for relative quantitation of posttranslational modifications. The utility of solid-phase capture was determined with model phosphopeptides, and the method was demonstrated with enriching phosphopeptides from beta-casein, alpha-casein and ovalbumin. The solid-phase capture and release methods were also demonstrated with unfractionated whole histone protein mixtures to show this compound applicability in real biological samples. The new chemical strategy will ultimately be utilized for high-throughput profiling of phosphorylation and possibly other posttranslational modifications.

Animals↗