Identification of Tyrosine-Phosphorylated Proteins Associated with Lung Cancer Metastasis using Label-Free Quantitative Analyses

PTPN2 in the Immunity and Tumor Immunotherapy: A Concise Review

PTPN2 (protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor 2), also called TCPTP (T cell protein tyrosine phosphatase), is a member of the PTP family signaling proteins. Phosphotyrosine-based signaling of this non-transmembrane protein is essential for regulating cell growth, development, differentiation, survival, and migration. In particular, PTPN2 received researchers’ attention when Manguso et al. identified PTPN2 as a cancer immunotherapy target using in vivo CRISPR library screening. In this review, we attempt to summarize the important functions of PTPN2 in terms of its structural and functional properties, inflammatory reactions, immunomodulatory properties, and tumor immunity. PTPN2 exerts synergistic anti-inflammatory effects in various inflammatory cells and regulates the developmental differentiation of immune cells. The diversity of PTPN2 effects in different types of tumors makes it a potential target for tumor immunotherapy.

Tumor suppressive protein phosphatases in human cancer: Emerging targets for therapeutic intervention and tumor stratification

Aberrant protein phosphorylation is one of the hallmarks of cancer cells, and in many cases a prerequisite to sustain tumor development and progression. Like protein kinases, protein phosphatases are key regulators of cell signaling. However, their contribution to aberrant signaling in cancer cells is overall less well appreciated, and therefore, their clinical potential remains largely unexploited. In this review, we provide an overview of tumor suppressive protein phosphatases in human cancer. Along their mechanisms of inactivation in defined cancer contexts, we give an overview of their functional roles in diverse signaling pathways that contribute to their tumor suppressive abilities. Finally, we discuss their emerging roles as predictive or prognostic markers, their potential as synthetic lethality targets, and the current feasibility of their reactivation with pharmacologic compounds as promising new cancer therapies. We conclude that their inclusion in clinical practice has obvious potential to significantly improve therapeutic outcome in various ways, and should now definitely be pushed forward.

Identification of Phosphorylated Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 1 Associated with Colorectal Cancer Survival Using Label-Free Quantitative Analyses

Colorectal cancer is the most common form of cancer in the world, and the five-year survival rate is estimated to be almost 90% in the early stages. Therefore, the identification of potential biomarkers to assess the prognosis of early stage colorectal cancer patients is critical for further clinical treatment. Dysregulated tyrosine phosphorylation has been found in several diseases that play a significant regulator of signaling in cellular pathways. In this study, this strategy was used to characterize the tyrosine phosphoproteome of colorectal cell lines with different progression abilities (SW480 and SW620). We identified a total of 280 phosphotyrosine (pTyr) peptides comprising 287 pTyr sites from 261 proteins. Label-free quantitative analysis revealed the differential level of a total of 103 pTyr peptides between SW480 and SW620 cells. We showed that cyclin-dependent kinase I (CDK1) pTyr15 level in SW480 cells was 3.3-fold greater than in SW620 cells, and these data corresponded with the label-free mass spectrometry-based proteomic quantification analysis. High level CDK1 pTyr15 was associated with prolonged disease-free survival for stage II colorectal cancer patients (n = 79). Taken together, our results suggest that the CDK1 pTyr15 protein is a potential indicator of the progression of colorectal cancer.

Examination of segmental average mass spectra from liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (LC-MS/MS) data enables screening of multiple types of protein modifications

It has been observed that a modified peptide and its non-modified counterpart, when analyzed with reverse phase liquid chromatography, usually share a very similar elution property [1-3]. Inasmuch as this property is common to many different types of protein modifications, we propose an informatics-based approach, featuring the generation of segmental average mass spectra ((sa)MS), that is capable of locating different types of modified peptides in two-dimensional liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric (LC-MS) data collected for regular protease digests from proteins in gels or solutions. To enable the localization of these peptides in the LC-MS map, we have implemented a set of computer programs, or the (sa)MS package, that perform the needed functions, including generating a complete set of segmental average mass spectra, compiling the peptide inventory from the Sequest/TurboSequest results, searching modified peptide candidates and annotating a tandem mass spectrum for final verification. Using ROCK2 as an example, our programs were applied to identify multiple types of modified peptides, such as phosphorylated and hexosylated ones, which particularly include those peptides that could have been ignored due to their peculiar fragmentation patterns and consequent low search scores. Hence, we demonstrate that, when complemented with peptide search algorithms, our approach and the entailed computer programs can add the sequence information needed for bolstering the confidence of data interpretation by the present analytical platforms and facilitate the mining of protein modification information out of complicated LC-MS/MS data.

iPhos: a toolkit to streamline the alkaline phosphatase-assisted comprehensive LC-MS phosphoproteome investigation

Background

Comprehensive characterization of the phosphoproteome in living cells is critical in signal transduction research. But the low abundance of phosphopeptides among the total proteome in cells remains an obstacle in mass spectrometry-based proteomic analysis. To provide a solution, an alternative analytic strategy to confidently identify phosphorylated peptides by using the alkaline phosphatase (AP) treatment combined with high-resolution mass spectrometry was provided. While the process is applicable, the key integration along the pipeline was mostly done by tedious manual work.

Results

We developed a software toolkit, iPhos, to facilitate and streamline the work-flow of AP-assisted phosphoproteome characterization. The iPhos tookit includes one assister and three modules. The iPhos Peak Extraction Assister automates the batch mode peak extraction for multiple liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) runs. iPhos Module-1 can process the peak lists extracted from the LC-MS analyses derived from the original and dephosphorylated samples to mine out potential phosphorylated peptide signals based on mass shift caused by the loss of some multiples of phosphate groups. And iPhos Module-2 provides customized inclusion lists with peak retention time windows for subsequent targeted LC-MS/MS experiments. Finally, iPhos Module-3 facilitates to link the peptide identifications from protein search engines to the quantification results from pattern-based label-free quantification tools. We further demonstrated the utility of the iPhos toolkit on the data of human metastatic lung cancer cells (CL1-5).

Conclusions

In the comparison study of the control group of CL1-5 cell lysates and the treatment group of dasatinib-treated CL1-5 cell lysates, we demonstrated the applicability of the iPhos toolkit and reported the experimental results based on the iPhos-facilitated phosphoproteome investigation. And further, we also compared the strategy with pure DDA-based LC-MS/MS phosphoproteome investigation. The results of iPhos-facilitated targeted LC-MS/MS analysis convey more thorough and confident phosphopeptide identification than the results of pure DDA-based analysis.

Optimization of titanium dioxide and immunoaffinity-based enrichment procedures for tyrosine phosphopeptide using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Tyrosine phosphorylation is an important regulator of signaling in cellular pathways, and dysregulated tyrosine phosphorylation causes several diseases. Mass spectrometry has revealed the importance of global phosphoproteomic characterization. Analysis of tyrosine phosphorylation by studying the mass-spectrometry (MS)-determined phosphoproteome remains difficult because of the relatively low abundance of tyrosine phosphoproteins. To effectively evaluate tyrosine-phosphopeptide enrichment and reduce ion suppression from non-phosphorylated peptides in MS analysis, three trypsin-digested BSA peptides and 14 standard phosphopeptides, including six tyrosine phosphopeptides, four serine phosphopeptides, and four threonine phosphopeptides, were subjected to titanium dioxide immunoaffinity-based enrichment and also to combined enrichment using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analyses. The enrichment factors were evaluated to determine the efficiency of each enrichment procedure. Comparison of five optimized enrichment methods, including TiO2-based immunoaffinity purification in Tris and MOPS buffer systems, TiO2-immunoaffinity enrichment, and immunoaffinity-TiO2 enrichment for total tyrosine, serine and threonine phosphopeptides, revealed that the order of the enrichment factors for total tyrosine phosphopeptides is: (i) immunoaffinity-TiO2 (enrichment factor = 38,244), (ii) TiO2-immunoaffinity (enrichment factor = 24,987), (iii) TiO2 micro-column (enrichment factor = 10,305), (iv) immunoaffinity in Tris buffer system (enrichment factor = 1450), and (v) immunoaffinity in the MOPS buffer system (enrichment factor = 32). These results reveal that an alternative enrichment scheme before use of a TiO2 micro-column, using immunoaffinity 4G10 and PY99 antibody enrichment under optimized conditions, can provide greater selectivity for tyrosine-phosphopeptide enrichment.

Respiratory Proteomics Today: Are Technological Advances for the Identification of Biomarker Signatures Catching up with Their Promise? A Critical Review of the Literature in the Decade 2004-2013

To improve the knowledge on a variety of severe disorders, research has moved from the analysis of individual proteins to the investigation of all proteins expressed by a tissue/organism. This global proteomic approach could prove very useful: (i) for investigating the biochemical pathways involved in disease; (ii) for generating hypotheses; or (iii) as a tool for the identification of proteins differentially expressed in response to the disease state. Proteomics has not been used yet in the field of respiratory research as extensively as in other fields, only a few reproducible and clinically applicable molecular markers, which can assist in diagnosis, having been currently identified. The continuous advances in both instrumentation and methodology, which enable sensitive and quantitative proteomic analyses in much smaller amounts of biological material than before, will hopefully promote the identification of new candidate biomarkers in this area. The aim of this report is to critically review the application over the decade 2004-2013 of very sophisticated technologies to the study of respiratory disorders. The observed changes in protein expression profiles from tissues/fluids of patients affected by pulmonary disorders opens the route for the identification of novel pathological mediators of these disorders.

Mass spectrometric study of stone matrix proteins of human bladder stones

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the mechanisms of bladder uric acid stone (BUAS) formation by analyzing BUAS stone matrix proteins, with mass spectrometry (MS).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Stone matrix proteins were extracted from 5 pure BUASs. The obtained proteins were analyzed with reverse phase liquid chromatography-tandem MS. The acquired data were investigated against a Swiss Prot human protein database, using Matrix Science Mascot. The identified proteins were submitted to UniProtKB website for gene ontology analysis to define their correlation. They were also submitted to Metacore platform and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes website for pathway analysis. MS-determined protein expressions were validated by immunoblot.

RESULTS

The liquid chromatography-tandem MS analysis identified 58-226 proteins in the 5 BUASs (450 proteins). Metacore software analysis suggests that inflammation might play an important role for BUAS formation. The analysis of endogenous metabolic pathways revealed that these proteins were categorized into glycerophospholipid or glycosphingolipid biosynthesis. Four of 5 identified proteins selected for validation, including uromodulin, S100P, Histone 4, and nucleophosmin, can be validated in the immunoblot data.

CONCLUSION

Our results suggest that inflammatory process and lipid metabolism might play a role in the formation of BUAS. Whether these inflammatory responses are the etiology of stone formation or whether they result from local damage by stone irritation is uncertain.

Characterization of the Phosphoproteome in SLE Patients

Protein phosphorylation is a complex regulatory event that is involved in the signaling networks that affect virtually every cellular process. The protein phosphorylation may be a novel source for discovering biomarkers and drug targets. However, a systematic analysis of the phosphoproteome in patients with SLE has not been performed. To clarify the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), we compared phosphoprotein expression in PBMCs from SLE patients and normal subjects using proteomics analyses. Phosphopeptides were enriched using TiO₂ from PBMCs isolated from 15 SLE patients and 15 healthy subjects and then analyzed by automated LC-MS/MS analysis. Phosphorylation sites were identified and quantitated by MASCOT and MaxQuant. A total of 1035 phosphorylation sites corresponding to 618 NCBI-annotated genes were identified in SLE patients compared with normal subjects. Differentially expressed proteins, peptides and phosphorylation sites were then subjected to bioinformatics analyses. Gene ontology(GO) and pathway analyses showed that nucleic acid metabolism, cellular component organization, transport and multicellular organismal development pathways made up the largest proportions of the differentially expressed genes. Pathway analyses showed that the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway and actin cytoskeleton regulators made up the largest proportions of the metabolic pathways. Network analysis showed that rous sarcoma oncogene (SRC), v-rel reticuloendotheliosis viral oncogene homolog A (RELA), histone deacetylase (HDA1C) and protein kinase C, delta (PRKCD) play important roles in the stability of the network. These data suggest that aberrant protein phosphorylation may contribute to SLE pathogenesis.

Label-free quantitation of protein modifications by pseudo selected reaction monitoring with internal reference peptides

Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) based methods provide powerful tools for the quantitative analysis of modified proteins. We have developed a label-free approach using internal reference peptides (IRP) from the target protein for signal normalization without the need for isotope labeling. Ion-trap mass spectrometry and pseudo-selected reaction monitoring (pSRM) were used to acquire full MS/MS and MS³ spectra from target peptides. Skyline, a widely used software for SRM experiments, was used for chromatographic ion extraction. Phosphopeptides spiked into a BSA background yielded concentration response curves with high correlation coefficients (typically >0.9) and low coefficients of variation (≤15%) over a 200-fold concentration range. Stable isotope dilution (SID) and IRP methods were compared for quantitation of six site-specific phosphorylations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in epidermal growth factor-stimulated A431 cells with or without the addition of EGFR inhibitors cetuximab and gefitinib. Equivalent responses were observed with both IRP and SID methods, although analyses using the IRP method typically had higher median CVs (22–31%) than SID (10–20%). Analyses using both methods were consistent with immunoblot using site-selective antibodies. The ease of implementation and the suitability for targeted quantitative comparisons make this method suitable for broad application in protein biochemistry.

Tailoring tyrosine kinase inhibitors to fit the lung cancer genome

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have been in use as cancer therapeutics for nearly a decade, and their utility in targeting specific malignancies with defined genetic lesions has proven to be remarkably effective. Recent efforts to characterize the spectrum of genetic lesions found in non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) have provided important insights into the molecular basis of this disease and have also revealed a wide array of tyrosine kinases that might be effectively targeted for rationally designed therapies. The findings of these studies, however, also provide a cautionary tale about the limitations of single-agent therapies, which fail to account for the genetic heterogeneity and pathway redundancy that characterize advanced NSCLC. Emergence of drug resistance mechanisms to specific TKIs, such as gefitinib and erlotinib, suggests that more sophisticated chemotherapeutic paradigms that target multiple pathways at the same time will be required to effectively treat this disease.

Quantitative secretome analysis reveals that COL6A1 is a metastasis-associated protein using stacking gel-aided purification combined with iTRAQ labeling

In cancer metastasis, secreted proteins play an important role in promoting cancer cell migration and invasion and thus also in the increase of cancer metastasis in the extracellular microenvironment. In this study, we developed a strategy that combined a simple gel-aided protein purification with iTRAQ labeling to quantify and discover the metastasis-associated proteins in the lung cancer cell secretome. Secreted proteins associated with lung cancer metastasis were produced using CL1-0 and CL1-5 cells with different metastatic abilities. Quantitative secretomics analysis identified a total of 353 proteins, 7 of which were considered to be metastasis-associated proteins. These included TIMP1, COL6A1, uPA, and AAT, all of which were higher in CL1-5, and AL1A1, PRDX1, and NID1, which were higher in CL1-0. Six of these metastasis-associated proteins were validated with Western blot analysis. In addition, pathway analysis was performed in building the interaction network between the identified metastasis-associated proteins. Further functional analysis of COL6A1 on the metastatic abilities of CL1 cells was also carried out. An RNA interference-based knock-down of COL6A1 suppressed the metastatic ability of CL1-5 cells; in contrast, a plasmid-transfected overexpression of COL6A1 increased the metastatic ability of CL1-0 cells. This study describes a simple and high throughput sample purification method that can be used for the quantitative secretomics analysis of metastasis-associated proteins.