ITMSQ: A software tool for N- and C-terminal fragment ion pairs based isobaric tandem mass spectrometry quantification

A Tutorial Review of Labeling Methods in Mass Spectrometry-Based Quantitative Proteomics

Recent advancements in mass spectrometry (MS) have revolutionized quantitative proteomics, with multiplex isotope labeling emerging as a key strategy for enhancing accuracy, precision, and throughput. This tutorial review offers a comprehensive overview of multiplex isotope labeling techniques, including precursor-based, mass defect-based, reporter ion-based, and hybrid labeling methods. It details their fundamental principles, advantages, and inherent limitations along with strategies to mitigate the limitation of ratio-distortion. This review will also cover the applications and latest progress in these labeling techniques across various domains, including cancer biomarker discovery, neuroproteomics, post-translational modification analysis, cross-linking MS, and single-cell proteomics. This Review aims to provide guidance for researchers on selecting appropriate methods for their specific goals while also highlighting the potential future directions in this rapidly evolving field.

Chemical isotope labeling for quantitative proteomics

Advancements in liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry over the last decades have led to a significant development in mass spectrometry-based proteome quantification approaches. An increasingly attractive strategy is multiplex isotope labeling, which significantly improves the accuracy, precision and throughput of quantitative proteomics in the data-dependent acquisition mode. Isotope labeling-based approaches can be classified into MS1-based and MS2-based quantification. In this review, we give an overview of approaches based on chemical isotope labeling and discuss their principles, benefits, and limitations with the goal to give insights into fundamental questions and provide a useful reference for choosing a method for quantitative proteomics. As a perspective, we discuss the current possibilities and limitations of multiplex, isotope labeling approaches for the data-independent acquisition mode, which is increasing in popularity.

Quantification of Protein Palmitoylation by Cysteine-SILAC

Cysteine-SILAC enables the detection and quantification of protein S-palmitoylation, an important protein posttranslational modification. Here we describe the cell culture, protein extraction, selective enrichment, mass spectrometry, and data analysis for palmitoylated proteins from cell samples by this method.

Recent advances in isobaric labeling and applications in quantitative proteomics

Mass spectrometry (MS) has emerged at the forefront of quantitative proteomic techniques. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) can be used to determine abundances of proteins and peptides in complex biological samples. Several methods have been developed and adapted for accurate quantification based on chemical isotopic labeling. Among various chemical isotopic labeling techniques, isobaric tagging approaches rely on the analysis of peptides from MS2-based quantification rather than MS1-based quantification. In this review, we will provide an overview of several isobaric tags along with some recent developments including complementary ion tags, improvements in sensitive quantitation of analytes with lower abundance, strategies to increase multiplexing capabilities, and targeted analysis strategies. We will also discuss limitations of isobaric tags and approaches to alleviate these restrictions through bioinformatic tools and data acquisition methods. This review will highlight several applications of isobaric tags, including biomarker discovery and validation, thermal proteome profiling, cross-linking for structural investigations, single-cell analysis, top-down proteomics, along with applications to different molecules including neuropeptides, glycans, metabolites, and lipids, while providing considerations and evaluations to each application.

Comparison of LFQ and IPTL for Protein Identification and Relative Quantification

(1) Background: Mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteome profiling is most commonly performed by label-free quantification (LFQ), stable isotopic labeling with amino acids in cell culture (SILAC), and reporter ion-based isobaric labeling methods (TMT and iTRAQ). Isobaric peptide termini labeling (IPTL) was described as an alternative to these methods and is based on crosswise labeling of both peptide termini and MS2 quantification. High quantification accuracy was assumed for IPTL because multiple quantification points are obtained per identified MS2 spectrum. A direct comparison of IPTL with other quantification methods has not been performed yet because IPTL commonly requires digestion with endoproteinase Lys-C. (2) Methods: To enable tryptic digestion of IPTL samples, a novel labeling for IPTL was developed that combines metabolic labeling (Arg-0/Lys-0 and Arg-d4/Lys-d4, respectively) with crosswise N-terminal dimethylation (d4 and d0, respectively). (3) Results: The comparison of IPTL with LFQ revealed significantly more protein identifications for LFQ above homology ion scores but not above identity ion scores. (4) Conclusions: The quantification accuracy was superior for LFQ despite the many quantification points obtained with IPTL.

A Versatile Isobaric Tag Enables Proteome Quantification in Data-Dependent and Data-Independent Acquisition Modes

Quantifying proteins based on peptide-coupled reporter ions is a multiplexed quantitative strategy in proteomics that alleviates the problem of ratio distortion caused by peptide cofragmentation, as commonly observed in other reporter-ion-based approaches, such as TMT and iTRAQ. Data-independent acquisition (DIA) is an attractive alternative to data-dependent acquisition (DDA) due to its better reproducibility. While multiplexed labeling is widely used in DDA, it is rarely used in DIA, presumably because current approaches lead to more complex MS2 spectra, severe ratio distortion, or to a reduction in quantification accuracy and precision. Herein, we present a versatile acetyl-alanine-glycine (Ac-AG) tag that conceals quantitative information in isobarically labeled peptides and reveals it upon tandem MS in the form of peptide-coupled reporter ions. Since the peptide-coupled reporter ion is precursor-specific while fragment ions of the peptide backbone originating from different labeling channels are identical, the Ac-AG tag is compatible with both DDA and DIA. By isolating the monoisotopic peak of the precursor ion in DDA, intensities of the peptide-coupled reporter ions represent the relative ratios between constituent samples, whereas in DIA, the ratio can be inferred after deconvoluting the peptide-coupled reporter ion isotopes. The proteome quantification capability of the Ac-AG tag was demonstrated by triplex labeling of a yeast proteome spiked with bovine serum albumin (BSA) over a 10-fold dynamic range. Within this complex proteomics background, BSA spiked at 1:5:10 ratios was detected at ratios of 1.00:4.87:10.13 in DDA and 1.16:5.20:9.64 in DIA.

A Collision-Induced Dissociation Cleavable Isobaric Tag for Peptide Fragment Ion-Based Quantification in Proteomics

Quantifying peptides based on unique peptide fragment ions avoids the issue of ratio distortion that is commonly observed for reporter ion-based quantification approaches. Herein, we present a collision-induced dissociation-cleavable, isobaric acetyl-isoleucine-proline-glycine (Ac-IPG) tag, which conserves the merits of quantifying peptides based on unique fragments while reducing the complexity of the b-ion series compared to conventional fragment ion-based quantification methods thus facilitating data processing. Multiplex labeling is based on selective N-terminal dimethylation followed by derivatization of the ε-amino group of the C-terminal Lys residue of LysC peptides with isobaric Ac-IPG tags having complementary isotope distributions on Pro-Gly and Ac-Ile. Upon fragmentation between Ile and Pro, the resulting y ions, with the neutral loss of Ac-Ile, can be distinguished between the different labeling channels based on different numbers of isotope labels on the Pro-Gly part and thus contain the information for relative quantification, while b ions of different labeling channels have the same m/z values. The proteome quantification capability of this method was demonstrated by triplex labeling of a yeast proteome spiked with bovine serum albumin (BSA) over a 10-fold dynamic range. With the yeast proteins as the background, BSA was detected at ratios of 1.14:5.06:9.78 when spiked at 1:5:10 ratios. The raw mass data is available on the ProteomeXchange with the identifier PXD 018790.

Selective Maleylation-Directed Isobaric Peptide Termini Labeling for Accurate Proteome Quantification

Isobaric peptide termini labeling (IPTL) is an attractive protein quantification method because it provides more accurate and reliable quantification information than traditional isobaric labeling methods (e.g., TMT and iTRAQ) by making use of the entire fragment-ion series instead of only a single reporter ion. The multiplexing capacity of published IPTL implementations is, however, limited to three. Here, we present a selective maleylation-directed isobaric peptide termini labeling (SMD-IPTL) approach for quantitative proteomics of LysC protein digestion. SMD-IPTL extends the multiplexing capacity to 4-plex with the potential for higher levels of multiplexing using commercially available ¹³C/¹⁵N labeled amino acids. SMD-IPTL is achieved in a one-pot reaction in three consecutive steps: (1) selective maleylation at the N-terminus; (2) labeling at the ε-NH₂ group of the C-terminal Lys with isotopically labeled acetyl-alanine; (3) thiol Michael addition of an isotopically labeled acetyl-cysteine at the maleylated N-terminus. The isobarically labeled peptides are fragmented into sets of b- and y-ion clusters upon LC-MS/MS, which convey not only sequence information but also quantitative information for every labeling channel and avoid the issue of ratio distortion observed with reporter-ion-based approaches. We demonstrate the SMD-IPTL approach with a 4-plex labeled sample of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and yeast lysates mixed at different ratios. With the use of SMD-IPTL for labeling and a narrow precursor isolation window of 0.8 Th with an offset of −0.2 Th, accurate ratios were measured across a 10-fold mixing range of BSA in a background of yeast proteome. With the yeast proteins mixed at ratios of 1:5:1:5, BSA was detected at ratios of 0.94:2.46:4.70:9.92 when spiked at 1:2:5:10 ratios with an average standard deviation of peptide ratios of 0.34.

A novel triplex isobaric termini labeling quantitative approach for simultaneously supplying three quantitative sources

Benefiting from high sensitivity and great ability to measure multiple samples simultaneously, isobaric tandem Mass spectrometry (MS2) quantification has been widely applied for protein biomarker screening. Here, a newly developed isobaric MS2 quantification method named triplex quantification by isobaric termini labeling (Triplex-QITL) was established. This method enables the accurate comparison of various fragment ions (reporter ions, amino acid fragments and N-/C-terminal fragments) based quantification to be operated in a single run. To our knowledge, this is the first time that this kind of comparison is achieved. In Triplex-QITL, proteins were first digested with Lys-C to produce peptides with lysine (K) at the C-termini, then dimethylation reagents and mTRAQ reagents were used to label the N-termini and C-termini of the peptides respectively. N- and C-terminal fragment ion pairs, reporter ions from mTRAQ (113,117,121) and a₁ ion pairs were simultaneously generated in MS2 spectra. In simple sample experiment, not much difference in using various fragment ions for quantification was observed. When analyzing SW480 cell lysate, comparing with a1 ions, about two times of reproducible quantification results were achieved by reporter ions and N- and C-terminal ions. Meanwhile the measured quantification results were much closer to the expected results even in large ratios (1:10:10) using N- and C-terminal ions. Finally, Triplex-QITL was successfully applied to profile metastatic differences of three hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines. In all, Triplex-QITL shows a promising future in quantitative proteomics.

diDO-IPTL: A Peptide-Labeling Strategy for Precision Quantitative Proteomics

We present an analytical strategy, dimethylation-deuteration and oxygen-exchange IPTL (diDO-IPTL), for high-precision, broad-coverage quantitative proteomics. The diDO-IPTL approach combines two advances in isobaric peptide terminal labeling (IPTL) methodology: first, a one-pot chemical labeling strategy for attaching isotopic tags to both the N- and C-termini of tryptic peptides, and second, a search engine (based on the Morpheus algorithm) optimized for identification and quantification of twinned peaks from peptide fragment ions in MS² spectra. The diDO-IPTL labeling chemistry uses only high-purity, relatively inexpensive isotopic reagents (¹⁸O water and deuterated formaldehyde) and requires no postlabeling cleanup or isotopic impurity corrections. This strategy produces proteome-scale relative quantification results with high accuracy and precision, suitable for the detection of small protein abundance variations between complex biological samples. In a two-proteome mixture experiment, diDO-IPTL quantification discriminates 1.5-fold changes in abundance of over 1000 proteins with 88% accuracy. The diDO-IPTL methodology is a high-precision, economical approach to quantitative proteomics that is applicable to a wide variety of sample types.

MdFDIA: A Mass Defect Based Four-Plex Data-Independent Acquisition Strategy for Proteome Quantification

Data-independent acquisition (DIA) has recently emerged as a powerful quantitative approach for large-scale proteome quantification, providing a sensitive and reproducible alternative to data-dependent acquisition (DDA). However, lack of compatible multiplexed quantification methods is a bottleneck of DIA. To alleviate this challenge, we present a mass defect based four-plex data-independent acquisition strategy, termed "MdFDIA", for parallel analysis of four different protein samples in a DIA experiment without the additional complexity of tandem mass spectrometry (MS²) spectra. MdFDIA is a hybrid approach that combines stable isotope labeling with amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) and dimethyl labeling. Briefly, the isotopes ¹³C₆¹⁵N₂-lysine (+8.0142 Da, light) and D₈-lysine (+8.0512 Da, heavy) were metabolically embedded in different proteome samples during cell culture. Then, two ¹³C₆¹⁵N₂-lysine and D₈-lysine labeled protein samples were digested with Lys-C, followed by in vitro labeling with light (2¹³CD₂H, +34.06312 Da) and heavy (2CD₃, +34.06896 Da) dimethyl groups, respectively, producing four different pseudoisobaric labeled protein samples. The labeled samples were then equally mixed and analyzed by DIA. The subtle mass differences between the four labeled forms in MS² scans can be resolved on an Orbitrap Fusion Lumos instrument to facilitate quantification without abundance information encoded in MS² spectra. Additionally, a systematic investigation was carried out and revealed that MdFDIA enabled a significant decrease of the adverse impact on the accuracy of the quantitative assays arising from the chromatographic isotope effect, especially the deuterium effect, which typically occurs in a DDA experiment. Additionally, MdFDIA provided a method for validating the fragment type in the DIA spectra identification result. Furthermore, MdFDIA was applied to quantitative proteome analyses of four different breast cancer cell lines, demonstrating the feasibility of this strategy for biological applications.