The combination of electron capture dissociation and fixed charge derivatization increases sequence coverage for O-glycosylated and O-phosphorylated peptides

Salt-Bridged Peptide Anion Gaseous Structures Enable Efficient Negative Ion Electron Capture Dissociation

We previously discovered that electron attachment to gaseous peptide anions can occur within a relatively narrow electron energy range. The resulting charge-increased radical ions undergo dissociation analogous to conventional cation electron capture/transfer dissociation (ECD/ETD), thus enabling a novel tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) technique that we termed negative ion electron capture dissociation (niECD). We proposed that gaseous zwitterionic structures are required for niECD with electron capture either occurring at or being directed by a positively charged site. Here, we further evaluate this zwitterion mechanism by performing niECD of peptides derivatized to alter their ability to form zwitterionic gaseous structures. Introduction of a fixed positive charge tag, a highly basic guanidino group, or a highly acidic sulfonate group to promote zwitterionic structures in singly charged anions, rescued the niECD ability of a peptide refractory to niECD in its unmodified form. We also performed a systematic study of five sets of synthetic peptides with decreasing zwitterion propensity and found that niECD efficiency decreased accordingly, further supporting the zwitterion mechanism. However, traveling-wave ion mobility-mass spectrometry experiments, performed to gain further insight into the gas-phase structures of peptides showing high niECD efficiency, exhibited an inverse correlation between the orientationally averaged collision cross sections and niECD efficiency. These results indicate that compact salt-bridged structures are also a requirement for effective niECD.

Power of positive thinking in quantitative proteomics

Derivatization of proteins with specific isotope reagents has been widely explored for quantitative proteomics where the relative abundances of proteins present in different complex samples are compared by MS. This represents an interesting arena for innovation, where protein chemistry and MS are associated for the best of both worlds. Among the numerous reagents developed, those that introduce a permanent positive charge, such as (N-succinimidyloxycarbonylmethyl)-tris(2,4,6-trimethoxyphenyl)phosphonium bromide (TMPP), increase the ionizability of their targets and thus improve the sensitivity of the approach. TMPP labeling also modifies the hydrophobicity and changes the peptide fragmentation pattern. Because TMPP reacts preferably with the N-termini of proteins and peptides, its use has been explored for proteogenomics and de novo protein sequencing. In this issue of Proteomics, Shen et al. (Proteomics 2015, 15, 2903-2909) show that accurate quantitation of proteins can be obtained with light/heavy TMPP-labeling of peptides, which can be easily prepared and desalted in a homemade C8-SCX-C8 stagetip, and then monitored by nano-LC-MS/MS analysis. Their results demonstrate enhanced sequence coverage compared with other approaches. Combined with an efficient enrichment procedure, the higher sensitivity of this "positive attitude" reagent may facilitate much deeper investigations into the quantitative proteomics of complex samples.

Site-specific O-Glycosylation Analysis of Human Blood Plasma Proteins

Site-specific glycosylation analysis is key to investigate structure-function relationships of glycoproteins, e.g. in the context of antigenicity and disease progression. The analysis, though, is quite challenging and time consuming, in particular for O-glycosylated proteins. In consequence, despite their clinical and biopharmaceutical importance, many human blood plasma glycoproteins have not been characterized comprehensively with respect to their O-glycosylation. Here, we report on the site-specific O-glycosylation analysis of human blood plasma glycoproteins. To this end pooled human blood plasma of healthy donors was proteolytically digested using a broad-specific enzyme (Proteinase K), followed by a precipitation step, as well as a glycopeptide enrichment and fractionation step via hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography, the latter being optimized for intact O-glycopeptides carrying short mucin-type core-1 and -2 O-glycans, which represent the vast majority of O-glycans on human blood plasma proteins. Enriched O-glycopeptide fractions were subjected to mass spectrometric analysis using reversed-phase liquid chromatography coupled online to an ion trap mass spectrometer operated in positive-ion mode. Peptide identity and glycan composition were derived from low-energy collision-induced dissociation fragment spectra acquired in multistage mode. To pinpoint the O-glycosylation sites glycopeptides were fragmented using electron transfer dissociation. Spectra were annotated by database searches as well as manually. Overall, 31 O-glycosylation sites and regions belonging to 22 proteins were identified, the majority being acute-phase proteins. Strikingly, also 11 novel O-glycosylation sites and regions were identified. In total 23 O-glycosylation sites could be pinpointed. Interestingly, the use of Proteinase K proved to be particularly beneficial in this context. The identified O-glycan compositions most probably correspond to mono- and disialylated core-1 mucin-type O-glycans (T-antigen). The developed workflow allows the identification and characterization of the major population of the human blood plasma O-glycoproteome and our results provide new insights, which can help to unravel structure-function relationships. The data were deposited to ProteomeXchange PXD003270.

Probing the mechanisms and dynamics of gas phase hydrogen-deuterium exchange reactions of sodiated polyglycines

The rate constants for H-D exchange reactions of sodiated polyglycines (GnNa(+), n = 2-8) and polyalanines (AnNa(+), n = 2, 3 and 5) with ND3 have been measured in the cell of an FT-ICR mass spectrometer. All peptides except G2Na(+) are found to undergo three exchange reactions, all of which are consecutive with no sign of multiple exchanges within a single collision event. This information has been used to construct full mechanistic scenarios with the help of detailed quantum chemical calculations of the possible reaction paths for H-D exchange. The first exchange is always located at the C terminus however with different mechanisms depending upon whether the peptide termini can (larger peptides) or cannot (smaller peptides) interact directly without strong energy penalty. The most favourable mechanisms for the second and third exchanges of the N terminus protons, are found to be different from those for the first for all peptide sizes. The peptide distortions that are necessary in order for some of these reactions to occur are made possible by the energy reservoir provided by the favorable interaction of the peptide ion with ND3. Their occurrence and variety preclude any general relationship between H-D exchange kinetics and the most stable ion structures. There is however a break at G7Na(+) in the kinetics trend, with a first exchange rate which is much smaller than for all other peptide sizes. This break can be directly related to a different structural type in which the C terminus is neither free nor close to the N terminus.

Femtosecond laser-induced ionization/dissociation tandem mass spectrometry (fsLID-MS/MS) of deprotonated phosphopeptide anions

RATIONALE

Radical-directed dissociation techniques provide structural information which is complementary to that from conventional collision-induced dissociation (CID). The analysis of phosphopeptide anions is warranted due to their relatively acidic character. As femtosecond laser-induced ionization/dissociation tandem mass spectrometry (fsLID-MS/MS) is uniquely initiated by field ionization, an investigation is warranted to determine whether fsLID may provide novel analytical utility for phosphopeptide anions.

METHODS

Twenty-three synthetic deprotonated phosphopeptide anions were introduced into a three-dimensional quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer via electrospray ionization. The ion trap was interfaced with a near-IR (802 nm) ultrashort-pulsed (35 fs FWHM) ultrahigh-powered (peak power ~10(14)  W/cm(2)) laser system. Performance comparisons are made with other techniques applied to phosphopeptide anion analysis, including CID, electron detachment dissociation (EDD), negative electron transfer dissociation (NETD), activated electron photodetachment dissociation (activated-EPD), and ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD).

RESULTS

FsLID-MS/MS of multiply deprotonated phosphopeptide anions provides sequence information via phosphorylation-intact a/x ions in addition to other sequence ions, satellite ions, and side-chain losses. Novel fragmentation processes include selective c-ion formation N-terminal to Ser/Thr and a phosphorylation-specific correlation between xn -98 ion abundances and phosphorylation at the n(th) residue. Sequencing-quality data required about 30 s of signal averaging. fsLID-MS/MS of singly deprotonated phosphopeptides did not yield product anions with stable trajectories, despite significant depletion of the precursor.

CONCLUSIONS

Multiply deprotonated phosphopeptide anions were sequenced via negative-mode fsLID-MS/MS, with phosphosite localization facilitated by a/x ion series in addition to diagnostic x(n)-98 ions. fsLID-MS/MS is qualitatively competitive with other techniques. Further efficiency enhancements (e.g., implementation on a linear trap or/and higher pulse frequencies) may permit sequence analyses on chromatographic timescales.

Chemical derivatization of peptide carboxyl groups for highly efficient electron transfer dissociation

The carboxyl groups of tryptic peptides were derivatized with a tertiary or quaternary amine labeling reagent to generate more highly charged peptide ions that fragment efficiently by electron transfer dissociation (ETD). All peptide carboxyl groups-aspartic and glutamic acid side-chains as well as C-termini-were derivatized with an average reaction efficiency of 99 %. This nearly complete labeling avoids making complex peptide mixtures even more complex because of partially-labeled products, and it allows the use of static modifications during database searching. Alkyl tertiary amines were found to be the optimal labeling reagent among the four types tested. Charge states are substantially higher for derivatized peptides: a modified tryptic digest of bovine serum albumin (BSA) generates ~90% of its precursor ions with z  >  2, compared with less than 40 % for the unmodified sample. The increased charge density of modified peptide ions yields highly efficient ETD fragmentation, leading to many additional peptide identifications and higher sequence coverage (e.g., 70 % for modified versus only 43 % for unmodified BSA). The utility of this labeling strategy was demonstrated on a tryptic digest of ribosomal proteins isolated from yeast cells. Peptide derivatization of this sample produced an increase in the number of identified proteins, a >50 % increase in the sequence coverage of these proteins, and a doubling of the number of peptide spectral matches. This carboxyl derivatization strategy greatly improves proteome coverage obtained from ETD-MS/MS of tryptic digests, and we anticipate that it will also enhance identification and localization of post-translational modifications.

Electron transfer dissociation of photolabeled peptides. Backbone cleavages compete with diazirine ring rearrangements

Gas-phase conformations and electron transfer dissociations of pentapeptide ions containing the photo-Leu residue (L*) were studied. Exhaustive conformational search including molecular dynamics force-field, semi-empirical, ab initio, and density functional theory calculations established that the photo-Leu residue did not alter the gas-phase conformations of (GL*GGK  +  2H)(2+) and (GL*GGK-NH2 + H)(+) ions, which showed the same conformer energy ranking as the unmodified Leu-containing ions. This finding is significant in that it simplifies conformational analysis of photo-labeled peptide ions. Electron transfer dissociation mass spectra of (GL*GGK  +  2H)(2+), (GL*GGK-NH2 + 2H)(2+),(GL*GGKK + 2H)(2+), (GL*GLK + 2H)(2+), and (GL*LGK + 2H)(2+) showed 16 %-21 % fragment ions originating by radical rearrangements and cleavages in the diazirine ring. These side-chain dissociations resulted in eliminations of N2H3, N2H4, [N2H5], and [NH4O] neutral fragments and were particularly abundant in long-lived charge-reduced cation-radicals. Deuterium labeling established that the neutral hydrazine molecules mainly contained two exchangeable and two nonexchangeable hydrogen atoms from the peptide and underwent further H/D exchange in an ion-molecule complex. Electron structure calculations on the charge-reduced ions indicated that the unpaired electron was delocalized between the diazirine and amide π* electronic systems in the low electronic states of the cation-radicals. The diazirine moiety in GL*GGK-NH2was calculated to have an intrinsic electron affinity of 1.5 eV, which was further increased by the Coulomb effect of the peptide positive charge. Mechanisms are proposed for the unusual elimination of hydrazine from the photo-labeled peptide ions.

Enhanced electron transfer dissociation of peptides modified at C-terminus with fixed charges

The impact of the conversion of carboxylates in peptides to basic or fixed charge sites on the outcome of electron transfer dissociation (ETD) is evaluated with respect to ETD efficiency and the number of diagnostic sequence ions. Four reagents, including benzylamine (BA), 1-benzylpiperazine (BZP), carboxymethyl trimethylammonium chloride hydrazide (GT), and (2-aminoethyl)trimethylammonium chloride hydrochloride (AETMA), were used for the carboxylate derivatization, with the first two replacing the acidic carboxylate groups with basic functionalities and the latter two introducing fixed charge sites. The ETD efficiencies and Xcorr scores were compared for both nonderivatized and derivatized tryptic and Glu-C peptides from cytochrome c. Derivatization of the carboxylate increases the average charge states, the number of fragment ions, and the dissociation efficiencies of peptides, especially for the fixed charge reagent, AETMA.

Photodissociation of charge tagged peptides

Tris(2,4,6-trimethoxyphenyl) phosphonium acetyl (TMPP-Ac) was previously introduced to improve the mass spectrometric sequence analysis of peptides by fixing a permanent charge at the N-termini. However, peptides containing arginine residues did not fragment efficiently after TMPP-Ac modification. In this work, we combine charge derivatization with photodissociation. The fragmentation of TMPP-derivatized peptides is greatly improved and a series of N-terminal fragments is generated with complete sequence information. Arginine has a special effect on the fragmentation of the TMPP tagged peptides when it is the N-terminal peptide residue. Theoretical and experimental results suggest that this is due to hydrogen transfer from the charged N-terminus to the hydrogen-deficient peptide sequence.

Sulfonium ion derivatization, isobaric stable isotope labeling and data dependent CID- and ETD-MS/MS for enhanced phosphopeptide quantitation, identification and phosphorylation site characterization

An amine specific peptide derivatization strategy involving the use of novel isobaric stable isotope encoded 'fixed charge' sulfonium ion reagents, coupled with an analysis strategy employing capillary HPLC, ESI-MS, and automated data dependent ion trap CID-MS/MS, -MS(3), and/or ETD-MS/MS, has been developed for the improved quantitative analysis of protein phosphorylation, and for identification and characterization of their site(s) of modification. Derivatization of 50 synthetic phosphopeptides with S,S'-dimethylthiobutanoylhydroxysuccinimide ester iodide (DMBNHS), followed by analysis using capillary HPLC-ESI-MS, yielded an average 2.5-fold increase in ionization efficiencies and a significant increase in the presence and/or abundance of higher charge state precursor ions compared to the non-derivatized phosphopeptides. Notably, 44% of the phosphopeptides (22 of 50) in their underivatized states yielded precursor ions whose maximum charge states corresponded to +2, while only 8% (4 of 50) remained at this maximum charge state following DMBNHS derivatization. Quantitative analysis was achieved by measuring the abundances of the diagnostic product ions corresponding to the neutral losses of 'light' (S(CH(3))(2)) and 'heavy' (S(CD(3))(2)) dimethylsulfide exclusively formed upon CID-MS/MS of isobaric stable isotope labeled forms of the DMBNHS derivatized phosphopeptides. Under these conditions, the phosphate group stayed intact. Access for a greater number of peptides to provide enhanced phosphopeptide sequence identification and phosphorylation site characterization was achieved via automated data-dependent CID-MS(3) or ETD-MS/MS analysis due to the formation of the higher charge state precursor ions. Importantly, improved sequence coverage was observed using ETD-MS/MS following introduction of the sulfonium ion fixed charge, but with no detrimental effects on ETD fragmentation efficiency.

Tunable charge tags for electron-based methods of peptide sequencing: design and applications

Charge tags using basic auxiliary functional groups 6-aminoquinolinylcarboxamido, 4-aminopyrimidyl-1-methylcarboxamido, 2-aminobenzoimidazolyl-1-methylcarboxamido, and the fixed-charge 4-(dimethylamino)pyridyl-1-carboxamido moiety are evaluated as to their properties in electron transfer dissociation mass spectra of arginine C-terminated peptides. The neutral tags have proton affinities that are competitive with those of amino acid residues in peptides. Charge reduction by electron transfer from fluoranthene anion-radicals results in peptide backbone dissociations that improve sequence coverage by providing extensive series of N-terminal c-type fragments without impeding the formation of C-terminal z fragments. Comparison of ETD mass spectra of free and tagged peptides allows one to resolve ambiguities in fragment ion assignment through mass shifts of c ions. Simple chemical procedures are reported for N-terminal tagging of Arg-containing tryptic peptides.

Dissociation channel dependence on peptide size observed in electron capture dissociation of tryptic peptides

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) of a series of five residue peptides led to the observation that these small peptides did not lead to the formation of the usual c/z ECD fragments, but to a, b, y, and w fragments. In order to determine how general this behavior is for small sized peptides, the effect of peptide size on ECD fragments using a complete set of ECD spectra from the SwedECD spectra database was examined. Analysis of the database shows that b and w fragments are favored for small peptide sizes and that average fragment size shows a linear relationship to parent peptide size for most fragment types. From these data, it appears that most of the w fragments are not secondary fragments of the major z ions, in sharp contrast with the proposed mechanism leading to these ions. These data also show that c fragment distributions depend strongly on the nature of C-terminal residue basic site: arginine leads to loss of short neutral fragments, whereas lysine leads to loss of longer neutral fragments. It also appears that b ions might be produced by two different mechanisms depending on the parent peptide size. A model for the fragmentation pathways in competition is proposed. These relationships between average fragment size and parent peptide size could be further exploited also for CID fragment spectra and could be included in fragmentation prediction algorithms.

Formation of peptide radical cations (m+·) in electron capture dissociation of peptides adducted with group IIB metal ions

Peptides adducted with different divalent Group IIB metal ions (Zn(2+), Cd(2+), and Hg(2+)) were found to give very different ECD mass spectra. ECD of Zn(2+) adducted peptides gave series of c-/z-type fragment ions with and without metal ions. ECD of Cd(2+) and Hg(2+) adducted model peptides gave mostly a-type fragment ions with M(+•) and fragment ions corresponding to losses of neutral side chain from M(+•). No detectable a-ions could be observed in ECD spectra of Zn(2+) adducted peptides. We rationalized the present findings by invoking both proton-electron recombination and metal-ion reduction processes. As previously postulated, divalent metal-ions adducted peptides could adopt several forms, including (a) [M + Cat](2+), (b) [(M + Cat - H) + H](2+), and (c) [(M + Cat - 2H) + 2H](2+). The relative population of these precursor ions depends largely on the acidity of the metal-ion peptide complexes. Peptides adducted with divalent metal-ions of small ionic radii (i.e., Zn(2+)) would form predominantly species (b) and (c); whereas peptides adducted with metal ions of larger ionic radii (i.e., Hg(2+)) would adopt predominantly species (a). Species (b) and (c) are believed to be essential for proton-electron recombination process to give c-/z-type fragments via the labile ketylamino radical intermediates. Species (c) is particularly important for the formation of non-metalated c-/z-type fragments. Without any mobile protons, species (a) are believed to undergo metal ion reduction and subsequently induce spontaneous electron transfer from the peptide moiety to the charge-reduced metal ions. Depending on the exothermicity of the electron transfer reaction, the peptide radical cations might be formed with substantial internal energy and might undergo further dissociation to give structural related fragment ions.

Electron-capture and -transfer dissociation of peptides tagged with tunable fixed-charge groups: structures and dissociation energetics

Pyridiniummethylcarbonyl moieties that were previously designed on the basis of electronic structure analysis are now utilized as fixed-charge tags with tunable electronic properties to be used for N-terminal peptide derivatization and sequencing by electron-transfer dissociation. Dipeptides AK and KA were derivatized at the peptide N-terminus with 4-dimethylaminopyridinium-N-acetyl (DMAP-ac) and pyridinium-N-acetyl (pyrid-ac) tags of increasing intrinsic recombination energies. Upon the capture of a free electron or electron transfer from fluoranthene anions, (DMAP-ac-AK+H)(2+), (DMAP-ac-KA+H)(2+), (pyrid-ac-AK+H)(2+) and (pyrid-ac-KA+H)(2+) ions, as well as underivatized (AK+2H)(2+), completely dissociated. The fixed-charge tags steered the dissociation upon electron transfer to form abundant backbone N-C(α) bond cleavages, whereas the underivatized peptide mainly underwent H-atom and side-chain losses. Precursor ion structures for the tagged peptides were analyzed by an exhaustive conformational search combined with B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) geometry optimization and single-point energy calculations in order to select the global energy minima. Structures, relative energies, transition states, ion-molecule complexes, and dissociation products were identified for several charge-reduced species from the tagged peptides. The electronic properties of the charge tags and their interactions with the peptide moieties are discussed. Electrospray ionization and electron-transfer dissociation of larger peptides are illustrated with a DMAP-tagged pentapeptide.

Electron predators are hydrogen atom traps. Effects of aryl groups on N-C(α) bond dissociations of peptide radicals

Effects of substituted aryl groups on dissociations of peptide aminoketyl radicals were studied computationally for model tetrapeptide intermediates GXD(•) G where X was a cysteine residue that was derivatized by S-(3-nitrobenzyl), S-(3-cyanobenzyl), S-(3,5-dicyanobenzyl), S-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl), and S-benzyl groups. The aminoketyl radical was placed within the Asp amide group. Aminoketyl radicals having the S-(3-nitrobenzyl) group were found to undergo spontaneous and highly exothermic migration of the hydroxyl hydrogen atom onto the nitro group in conformers allowing interaction between these groups. Competing reaction channels were investigated for aminoketyl radicals having the S-(3-cyanobenzyl) and S-(3,5-dicyanobenzyl) groups, e.g. H-atom migration to the C and N atoms of the C≡N group, migration to the C-4 position of the phenyl ring, and dissociation of the radical-activated NC(α) bond between the Asp and Gly residues. RRKM kinetic analysis on the combined B3LYP and ROMP2/6-311++G(2d,p) potential energy surface indicated > 99% H-atom transfer to the C≡N group forming a stable iminyl intermediate. The NC(α) bond dissociation was negligible. In contrast, peptides with the S-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl) and S-benzyl groups showed preferential NC(α) bond dissociation that outcompeted H-atom migration to the C-4 position and fluorine substituents in the phenyl ring. These computational results are used to suggest an alternative mechanism for the quenching effect on electron-based peptide backbone dissociations of benzyl groups with electron-withdrawing substitutents, as reported recently.

Enhanced electron transfer dissociation through fixed charge derivatization of cysteines

Electron transfer dissociation (ETD) has proven to be a promising new ion activation method for proteomics applications due to its ability to generate c- and z-type fragment ions in comparison to the y- and b-type ions produced upon the more conventional collisional activation of peptides. However, low precursor charge states hinder the success of electron-based activation methods due to competition from nondissociative charge reduction and incomplete sequence coverage. In the present report, the reduction and alkylation of disulfide bonds prior to ETD analysis is evaluated by comparison of three derivatization reagents: iodoacetamide (IAM), N,N-dimethyl-2-chloro-ethylamine (DML), and (3-acrylamidopropyl)-trimethyl ammonium chloride (APTA). While both the DML and APTA modifications lead to an increase in the charge states of peptides, the APTA-peptides provided the most significant improvement in percent fragmentation and sequence coverage for all peptides upon ETD, including formation of diagnostic ions that allow characterization of both the C- and N-termini. In addition, the formation of product ions in multiple charge states upon ETD is minimized for the APTA-modified peptides.

On the charge partitioning between c and z fragments formed after electron-capture induced dissociation of charge-tagged Lys-Lys and Ala-Lys dipeptide dications

Here we report on the charge partition between c and z fragments formed after femtosecond collisional electron-transfer from Cs atoms to charge-tagged peptide dications. Peptides chosen for study were Ala-Lys (AK) and Lys-Lys (KK) where one or both of the lysine epsilon-amino groups were trimethylated to provide one or two fixed charges. For peptides with only one charge tag, the other charge was obtained by protonation of an amino group. In some experiments the ammonium group was tagged by 18-crown-6-ether (CE). Since recombination energies decrease in the order: MeNH3+ > NMe4+ > MeNH3+(CE) > NMe4+(CE), it is possible to change the probability for the transferred electron to end up at either the N-terminal or the C-terminal residue by CE attachment. We find, however, that the individual recombination energies have little influence on the relative ratio between the yield of c and z ions as long as there are no mobile protons that can be transferred between the two fragments. Our results can be accounted for by the Utah-Washington model where the electron is captured into an amide pi* orbital that weakens the N-C(alpha) bond and causes its breakage, followed by proton, electron, or hydrogen transfer between the c and z fragments that stay together as an ion-molecule complex for some time. The data are also in accordance with the notion that an amide group competes with the charged groups for the electron. Electron capture by charged groups results in loss of small neutrals such as hydrogen and ammonia.

Probing the mechanism of electron capture and electron transfer dissociation using tags with variable electron affinity

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) and electron transfer dissociation (ETD) of doubly protonated electron affinity (EA)-tuned peptides were studied to further illuminate the mechanism of these processes. The model peptide FQpSEEQQQTEDELQDK, containing a phosphoserine residue, was converted to EA-tuned peptides via beta-elimination and Michael addition of various thiol compounds. These include propanyl, benzyl, 4-cyanobenzyl, perfluorobenzyl, 3,5-dicyanobenzyl, 3-nitrobenzyl, and 3,5-dinitrobenzyl structural moieties, having a range of EA from -1.15 to +1.65 eV, excluding the propanyl group. Typical ECD or ETD backbone fragmentations are completely inhibited in peptides with substituent tags having EA over 1.00 eV, which are referred to as electron predators in this work. Nearly identical rates of electron capture by the dications substituted by the benzyl (EA = -1.15 eV) and 3-nitrobenzyl (EA = 1.00 eV) moieties are observed, which indicates the similarity of electron capture cross sections for the two derivatized peptides. This observation leads to the inference that electron capture kinetics are governed by the long-range electron-dication interaction and are not affected by side chain derivatives with positive EA. Once an electron is captured to high-n Rydberg states, however, through-space or through-bond electron transfer to the EA-tuning tags or low-n Rydberg states via potential curve crossing occurs in competition with transfer to the amide pi* orbital. The energetics of these processes are evaluated using time-dependent density functional theory with a series of reduced model systems. The intramolecular electron transfer process is modulated by structure-dependent hydrogen bonds and is heavily affected by the presence and type of electron-withdrawing groups in the EA-tuning tag. The anion radicals formed by electron predators have high proton affinities (approximately 1400 kJ/mol for the 3-nitrobenzyl anion radical) in comparison to other basic sites in the model peptide dication, facilitating exothermic proton transfer from one of the two sites of protonation. This interrupts the normal sequence of events in ECD or ETD, leading to backbone fragmentation by forming a stable radical intermediate. The implications which these results have for previously proposed ECD and ETD mechanisms are discussed.

Ortho-proteogenomics: multiple proteomes investigation through orthology and a new MS-based protocol

The progress in sequencing technologies irrigates biology with an ever-increasing number of genome sequences. In most cases, the gene repertoire is predicted in silico and conceptually translated into proteins. As recently highlighted, the predicted genes exhibit frequent errors, particularly in start codons, with a serious impact on subsequent biological studies. A new "ortho-proteogenomic" approach is presented here for the annotation refinement of multiple genomes at once. It combines comparative genomics with an original proteomic protocol that allows the characterization of both N-terminal and internal peptides in a single experiment. This strategy was applied to the Mycobacterium genus with Mycobacterium smegmatis as the reference, and identified 946 distinct proteins, including 443 characterized N termini. These experimental data allowed the correction of 19% of the characterized start codons, the identification of 29 proteins missed during the annotation process, and the curation, thanks to comparative genomics, of 4328 sequences of 16 other Mycobacterium proteomes.

The effect of fixed charge modifications on electron capture dissociation

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) studies of two modified amyloid beta peptides (20-29 and 25-35) were performed to investigate the role of H* radicals in the ECD of peptide ions and the free-radical cascade (FRC) mechanism. 2,4,6-Trimethylpyridinium (TMP) was used as the fixed charge tag, which is postulated to both trap the originally formed radical upon electron capture and inhibit the H* generation. It was found that both the number and locations of the fixed charge groups influenced the backbone and side-chain cleavages of these peptides in ECD. In general, the frequency and extent of backbone cleavages decreased and those of side-chain cleavages increased with the addition of fixed charge tags. A singly labeled peptide with the tag group farther away from the protonated site experienced a smaller abundance decrease in backbone cleavage fragments than the one with the tag group closer to the protonated site. Despite the nonprotonated nature of all charge carriers in doubly labeled peptide ions, several c and z* ions were still observed in their ECD spectra. Thus, although H* transfer may be important for the NC(alpha) bond cleavage, there also exist other pathways, which would require a radical migration via H* abstraction through space or via an amide superbase mechanism. Finally, internal fragment ions were observed in the ECD of these linear peptides, indicating that the important role of the FRC in backbone cleavages is not limited to the ECD of cyclic peptides.

Electron-capture-induced dissociation of protoporphyrin IX ions

Electron-capture induced dissociation of protoporphyrin cations and anions has been studied. The cations captured two electrons in two successive collisions and were converted to the corresponding even-electron anions. About one fifth of the ions lost a hydrogen atom to become radical anions but otherwise very little fragmentation was observed. The anions captured an electron to become dianions. No hydrogen loss occurred, and the only fragmentation channel observed was loss of CO2H, to give a doubly charged carbanion. Our results indicate that protoporphyrin ions are very efficient in accommodating one or even two electrons in the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital of the porphyrin macrocycle, and that electron capture induces only limited dissociation.

Electronic properties of charge-tagged peptides upon electron capture

We report a computational study of Ala-Lys (AK) and Lys-Ala (KA) dipeptide ions furnished with fixed-charged pyridinium groups that were attached by amide linkers to the N-terminal amino groups. Cation-radicals from one-electron reduction of the doubly charged AK and KA peptide conjugates showed various extents of unpaired electron density being delocalized between the pyridine and peptide moieties. The delocalization depended on the local recombination energies (RE(loc)) of the charged groups. The RE(loc) of the pyridine moieties were modified by introducing electron-donating substituents (CH(3), OCH(3), and N(CH(3))(2)). The RE(loc) of the peptide moieties were found to depend on the peptide conformation and internal solvation of the Lys ammonium groups. Substantial electron delocalization was found for combinations of pyridine substituents and peptide conformers with closely matched RE(loc), such as 4-dimethylamino-pyridine and internally solvated Lys ammonium or unsubstituted pyridine and free (unsolvated) Lys ammonium. The dissociation (DeltaH(diss)) and transition state energies (E(TS)) for the loss of the pyridine ring from the conjugates were found to be DeltaH(diss) = 34-36 kJ mol(-1) and E(TS) = 67-69 kJ mol(-1) for the unsubstituted pyridine moieties, but did not depend much on the peptide sequence.

Electron capture in charge-tagged peptides. Evidence for the role of excited electronic states

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) was studied with doubly charged dipeptide ions that were tagged with fixed-charge tris-(2,4,6-trimethoxyphenyl)phosphonium-methylenecarboxamido (TMPP-ac) groups. Dipeptides GK, KG, AK, KA, and GR were each selectively tagged with one TMPP-ac group at the N-terminal amino group while the other charge was introduced by protonation at the lysine or arginine side-chain groups to give (TMPP-ac-peptide + H)(2+) ions by electrospray ionization. Doubly tagged peptide derivatives were also prepared from GK, KG, AK, and KA in which the fixed-charge TMPP-ac groups were attached to the N-terminal and lysine side-chain amino groups to give (TMPP-ac-peptide-ac-TMPP)(2+) dications by electrospray. ECD of (TMPP-ac-peptide + H)(2+) resulted in 72% to 84% conversion to singly charged dissociation products while no intact charge-reduced (TMPP-ac-dipeptide + H)(+) ions were detected. The dissociations involved loss of H, formation of (TMPP + H)(+), and N-C(alpha) bond cleavages giving TMPP-CH(2)CONH(2)(+) (c(0)) and c(1) fragments. In contrast, ECD of (TMPP-ac-peptide-ac-TMPP)(2+) resulted in 31% to 40% conversion to dissociation products due to loss of neutral TMPP molecules and 2,4,6-trimethoxyphenyl radicals. No peptide backbone cleavages were observed for the doubly tagged peptide ions. Ab initio and density functional theory calculations for (Ph(3)P-ac-GK + H)(2+) and (H(3)P-ac-GK + H)(2+) analogs indicated that the doubly charged ions contained the lysine side-chain NH(3)(+) group internally solvated by the COOH group. The distance between the charge-carrying phosphonium and ammonium atoms was calculated to be 13.1-13.2 A in the most stable dication conformers. The intrinsic recombination energies of the TMPP(+)-ac and (GK + H)(+) moieties, 2.7 and 3.15 eV, respectively, indicated that upon electron capture the ground electronic states of the (TMPP-ac-peptide + H)(+*) ions retained the charge in the TMPP group. Ground electronic state (TMPP-ac-GK + H)(+*) ions were calculated to spontaneously isomerize by lysine H-atom transfer to the COOH group to form dihydroxycarbinyl radical intermediates with the retention of the charged TMPP group. These can trigger cleavages of the adjacent N-C(alpha) bonds to give rise to the c(1) fragment ions. However, the calculated transition-state energies for GK and GGK models suggested that the ground-state potential energy surface was not favorable for the formation of the abundant c(0) fragment ions. This pointed to the involvement of excited electronic states according to the Utah-Washington mechanism of ECD.