Exploration of Missing Proteins by a Combination Approach to Enrich the Low-Abundance Hydrophobic Proteins from Four Cancer Cell Lines

Deciphering Protein Secretion from the Brain to Cerebrospinal Fluid for Biomarker Discovery

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is an essential matrix for the discovery of neurological disease biomarkers. However, the high dynamic range of protein concentrations in CSF hinders the detection of the least abundant protein biomarkers by untargeted mass spectrometry. It is thus beneficial to gain a deeper understanding of the secretion processes within the brain. Here, we aim to explore if and how the secretion of brain proteins to the CSF can be predicted. By combining a curated CSF proteome and the brain elevated proteome of the Human Protein Atlas, brain proteins were classified as CSF or non-CSF secreted. A machine learning model was trained on a range of sequence-based features to differentiate between CSF and non-CSF groups and effectively predict the brain origin of proteins. The classification model achieves an area under the curve of 0.89 if using high confidence CSF proteins. The most important prediction features include the subcellular localization, signal peptides, and transmembrane regions. The classifier generalized well to the larger brain detected proteome and is able to correctly predict novel CSF proteins identified by affinity proteomics. In addition to elucidating the underlying mechanisms of protein secretion, the trained classification model can support biomarker candidate selection.

Low-Abundance Protein Enrichment for Medical Applications: The Involvement of Combinatorial Peptide Library Technique

The discovery of low- and very low-abundance proteins in medical applications is considered a key success factor in various important domains. To reach this category of proteins, it is essential to adopt procedures consisting of the selective enrichment of species that are present at extremely low concentrations. In the past few years pathways towards this objective have been proposed. In this review, a general landscape of the enrichment technology situation is made first with the presentation and the use of combinatorial peptide libraries. Then, a description of this peculiar technology for the identification of early-stage biomarkers for well-known pathologies with concrete examples is given. In another field of medical applications, the determination of host cell protein traces potentially present in recombinant therapeutic proteins, such as antibodies, is discussed along with their potentially deleterious effects on the health of patients on the one hand, and on the stability of these biodrugs on the other hand. Various additional applications of medical interest are disclosed for biological fluids investigations where the target proteins are present at very low concentrations (e.g., protein allergens).

Discovery of Missing Proteins from an Aneuploidy Cell Line Using a Proteogenomic Approach

With the steadfast development of proteomic technology, the number of missing proteins (MPs) has been continuously shrinking, with approximately 1470 MPs that have not been explored yet. Due to this phenomenon, the discovery of MPs has been increasingly more difficult and elusive. In order to face this challenge, we have hypothesized that a stable aneuploid cell line with increased chromosomes serves as a useful material for assisting MP exploration. Ker-CT cell line with trisomy at chromosome 5 and 20 was selected for this purpose. With a combination strategy of RNA-Seq and LC-MS/MS, a total of 22 178 transcripts and 8846 proteins were identified in Ker-CT. Although the transcripts corresponding to 15 and 15 MP genes located at chromosome 5 and 20 were detected, none of the MPs were found in Ker-CT. Surprisingly, 3 MPs containing at least two unique non-nest peptides of length ≥9 amino acids were identified in Ker-CT, whose genes are located on chromosome 3 and 10, respectively. Furthermore, the 3 MPs were verified using the method of parallel reaction monitoring (PRM). These results suggest that the abnormal status of chromosomes may not only impact the expression of the corresponding genes in trisomy chromosomes, but also influence that of other chromosomes, which benefits MP discovery. The data obtained in this study are available via ProteomeXchange (PXD028647) and PeptideAtlas (PASS01700), respectively.

Progress Identifying and Analyzing the Human Proteome: 2021 Metrics from the HUPO Human Proteome Project

The 2021 Metrics of the HUPO Human Proteome Project (HPP) show that protein expression has now been credibly detected (neXtProt PE1 level) for 18 357 (92.8%) of the 19 778 predicted proteins coded in the human genome, a gain of 483 since 2020 from reports throughout the world reanalyzed by the HPP. Conversely, the number of neXtProt PE2, PE3, and PE4 missing proteins has been reduced by 478 to 1421. This represents remarkable progress on the proteome parts list. The utilization of proteomics in a broad array of biological and clinical studies likewise continues to expand with many important findings and effective integration with other omics platforms. We present highlights from the Immunopeptidomics, Glycoproteomics, Infectious Disease, Cardiovascular, Musculo-Skeletal, Liver, and Cancers B/D-HPP teams and from the Knowledgebase, Mass Spectrometry, Antibody Profiling, and Pathology resource pillars, as well as ethical considerations important to the clinical utilization of proteomics and protein biomarkers.

Improving identification of low abundance and hydrophobic proteins using fluoroalcohol mediated supramolecular biphasic systems with quaternary ammonium salts

In this study, a newly discovered Supramolecular Biphasic System (S-BPS) was used in bottom-up proteomics of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain of yeast. We took advantage of S-BPS in bottom-up proteomics of this strain of yeast as the protein sample, while the results were compared to routinely used solubilizing reagents, such as urea, and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). With the S-BPS, we identified 3043 proteins as compared to 2653 proteins that were identified in the control system. Interestingly, of the additional 390 proteins characterized by the S-BPS, 300 proteins were low abundance (less than 4000 molecules/cell). Remarkably, the identification of proteins at very low abundance (less than 2000 molecule/cell) was improved by 106%. This suggests that the S-BPS is particularly advantageous for detecting low abundance proteins. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis was conducted to find fractionation pattern of proteins in our two-phase system, and in nearly every gene ontology category, the S-BPS provided greater coverage than the control experiment, i.e., coverage for integral membrane proteins and mitochondrial ribosome proteins are improved by 18% and 58%, respectively. The improvements in proteins coverage for low abundance and membrane proteins can be attributed to the strong solubilizing power of the amphiphile-rich phase of this S-BPS and its capability for concomitant extraction, fractionation, and enrichment of the complex proteomics samples. Each phase has selectivity towards specific yeast protein groups, this selectivity is generally based on pI and hydrophobicity of proteins. Therefore, more hydrophobic proteins and acidic proteins exhibit greater affinities for the amphiphile-rich phase due to the hydrophobic effect and electrostatic interactions.

Combinatorial peptides: A library that continuously probes low-abundance proteins

After a decade of experimental applications, it is the objective of this review to make a point on combinatorial peptide ligand libraries dedicated to low-abundance proteins from animals to plants and to microorganism proteomics. It is, thus, at the light of the recent technical developments and applications that we will examine the state of the art, its usage within the scientific community, and its openness to unexplored fields. The improvements of the methodology and its implementation in connection with analytical determinations of combinatorial peptide ligand library (CPLL)-treated samples are extensively reviewed and commented upon. Relevant examples covering few critical aspects describe the performance of the technology. Finally, a reflection on the technological future is attempted in particular by involving new concepts adapted to the limited availability of certain biological samples.

Development of an Acrylamide-Based Inhibitor of Protein S-Acylation

Protein S-acylation is a dynamic lipid post-translational modification that can modulate the localization and activity of target proteins. In humans, the installation of the lipid onto target proteins is catalyzed by a family of 23 Asp-His-His-Cys domain-containing protein acyltransferases (DHHC-PATs). DHHCs are increasingly recognized as critical players in cellular signaling events and in human disease. However, progress elucidating the functions and mechanisms of DHHC "writers" has been hampered by a lack of chemical tools to perturb their activity in live cells. Herein, we report the synthesis and characterization of cyano-myracrylamide (CMA), a broad-spectrum DHHC family inhibitor with similar potency to 2-bromopalmitate (2BP), the most commonly used DHHC inhibitor in the field. Possessing an acrylamide warhead instead of 2BP's α-halo fatty acid, CMA inhibits DHHC family proteins in cellulo while demonstrating decreased toxicity and avoiding inhibition of the S-acylation eraser enzymes, two of the major weaknesses of 2BP. Our studies show that CMA engages with DHHC family proteins in cells, inhibits protein S-acylation, and disrupts DHHC-regulated cellular events. CMA represents an improved chemical scaffold for untangling the complexities of DHHC-mediated cell signaling by protein S-acylation.

Improved Protein Coverage in Bottom-Up Proteomes Analysis Using Fluoroalcohol-Mediated Supramolecular Biphasic Systems With Mixed Amphiphiles for Sample Extraction, Fractionation, and Enrichment

A new class of supramolecular biphasic systems containing fluoroalcohol-induced coacervates (FAiC) provides concomitant fractionation of complex protein mixtures, high solubilizing power for extraction of various types of proteins, especially those with high hydrophobicity (such as membrane proteins), and enrichment of low-abundance proteins. Subsequently, the use of FAiC biphasic systems (BPS) in the bottom-up proteomics workflow resulted in significantly higher coverage for the whole proteome, various subproteomes, especially those embedded or associated with membranes, post-translationally modified proteins, and low-abundance proteins (LAPs) as compared to the conventional methodologies. In this work, we used a new type of FAiC-BPS composed of mixed amphiphiles, a zwitterionic surfactant 3-(N,N-dimethylmyristyl ammonia) propane sulfonate (DMMAPS), a quaternary ammonium salt (QUATS), and hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) as the coacervator for extraction, fractionation, and enrichment of yeast proteome in bottom-up proteomics. The coverage of the lower-abundance proteins (abundance below 2000 molecules/cell) improved by more than 100% using DMMAPS and DMMAPS + QUATS systems as compared to the conventional methods using urea or detergent solutions for protein solubilization. Additionally, these coacervate systems show increased coverage of integral membrane proteins and proteins with α-helices by up to 24 and 555%, respectively.