Bioorthogonal mimetics of palmitoyl-CoA and myristoyl-CoA and their subsequent isolation by click chemistry and characterization by mass spectrometry reveal novel acylated host-proteins modified by HIV-1 infection.

Protein acylation plays a critical role in protein localization and function. Acylation is essential for human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) assembly and budding of HIV-1 from the plasma membrane in lipid raft microdomains and is mediated by myristoylation of the Gag polyprotein and the copackaging of the envelope protein is facilitated by colocalization mediated by palmitoylation. Since the viral accessory protein NEF has been shown to alter the substrate specificity of myristoyl transferases, and alter cargo trafficking lipid rafts, we hypothesized that HIV-1 infection may alter protein acylation globally. To test this hypothesis, we labeled HIV-1 infected cells with biomimetics of acyl azides, which are incorporated in a manner analogous to natural acyl-Co-A. A terminal azide group allowed us to use a copper catalyzed click chemistry to conjugate the incorporated modifications to a number of substrates to carry out SDS-PAGE, fluorescence microscopy, and enrichment for LC-MS/MS. Using LC-MS/MS, we identified 103 and 174 proteins from the myristic and palmitic azide enrichments, with 27 and 45 proteins respectively that differentiated HIV-1 infected from uninfected cells. This approach has provided us with important insights into HIV-1 biology and is widely applicable to many virological systems.

Absolute quantification of norovirus capsid protein in food, water, and soil using synthetic peptides with electrospray and MALDI mass spectrometry.

Norovirus infections are one of the most prominent public health problems of microbial origin in the U.S. and other industrialized countries. Surveillance is necessary to prevent secondary infection, confirm successful cleanup after outbreaks, and track the causative agent. Quantitative mass spectrometry, based on absolute quantitation with stable-isotope labeled peptides, is a promising tool for norovirus monitoring because of its speed, sensitivity, and robustness in the face of environmental inhibitors. In the current study, we present two new methods for the detection of the norovirus genogroup I capsid protein using electrospray and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry. The peptide TLDPIEVPLEDVR was used to quantify norovirus-like particles down to 500 attomoles with electrospray and 100 attomoles with MALDI. With MALDI, we also demonstrate a detection limit of 1 femtomole and a quantitative dynamic range of 5 orders of magnitude in the presence of an environmental matrix effect. Due to the rapid processing time and applicability to a wide range of environmental sample types (bacterial lysate, produce, milk, soil, and groundwater), mass spectrometry-based absolute quantitation has a strong potential for use in public health and environmental sciences.

Complex N-linked glycans serve as a determinant for exosome/microvesicle cargo recruitment.

Exosomes, also known as microvesicles (EMVs), are nano-sized membranous particles secreted from nearly all mammalian cell types. These nanoparticles play critical roles in many physiological processes including cell-cell signaling, immune activation, and suppression and are associated with disease states such as tumor progression. The biological functions of EMVs are highly dependent on their protein composition, which can dictate pathogenicity. Although some mechanisms have been proposed for the regulation of EMV protein trafficking, little attention has been paid to N-linked glycosylation as a potential sorting signal. Previous work from our laboratory found a conserved glycan signature for EMVs, which differed from that of the parent cell membranes, suggesting a potential role for glycosylation in EMV biogenesis. In this study, we further explore the role of glycosylation in EMV protein trafficking. We identify EMV glycoproteins and demonstrate alteration of their recruitment as a function of their glycosylation status upon pharmacological manipulation. Furthermore, we show that genetic manipulation of the glycosylation levels of a specific EMV glycoprotein, EWI-2, directly impacts its recruitment as a function of N-linked glycan sites. Taken together, our data provide strong evidence that N-linked glycosylation directs glycoprotein sorting into EMVs.

The conserved set of host proteins incorporated into HIV-1 virions suggests a common egress pathway in multiple cell types.

HIV-1 incorporates a large array of host proteins into virions. Determining the host protein composition in HIV virions has technical difficulties, including copurification of microvesicles. We developed an alternative purification technique using cholesterol that differentially modulates the density of virions and microvesicles (density modification, DM) allowing for high-yield virion purification that is essential for tandem mass spectrometric and quantitative proteomic (iTRAQ) analysis. DM purified virions were analyzed using iTRAQ and validated against Optiprep (60% iodixanol) purified virions. We were able to characterize host protein incorporation in DM-purified HIV particles derived from CD4+ T-cell lines; we compared this data set to a reprocessed data set of monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) derived HIV-1 using the same bioinformatics pipeline. Seventy-nine clustered proteins were shared between the MDM derived and T-cell derived data set. These clusters included an extensive collection of actin isoforms, HLA proteins, chaperones, and a handful of other proteins, many of which have previously been documented to interact with viral proteins. Other proteins of note were ERM proteins, the dynamin domain containing protein EH4, a phosphodiesterase, and cyclophilin A. As these proteins are incorporated in virions produced in both cell types, we hypothesize that these proteins may have direct interactions with viral proteins or may be important in the viral life cycle. Additionally, identified common set proteins are predicted to interact with >1000 related human proteins. Many of these secondary interacting proteins are reported to be incorporated into virions, including ERM proteins and adhesion molecules. Thus, only a few direct interactions between host and viral proteins may dictate the host protein composition in virions. Ultimately, interaction and expression differences in host proteins between cell types may drive virion phenotypic diversity, despite conserved viral protein-host protein interactions between cell types.

A bioinformatics approach for integrated transcriptomic and proteomic comparative analyses of model and non-sequenced anopheline vectors of human malaria parasites.

Malaria morbidity and mortality caused by both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax extend well beyond the African continent, and although P. vivax causes between 80 and 300 million severe cases each year, vivax transmission remains poorly understood. Plasmodium parasites are transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes, and the critical site of interaction between parasite and host is at the mosquito's luminal midgut brush border. Although the genome of the "model" African P. falciparum vector, Anopheles gambiae, has been sequenced, evolutionary divergence limits its utility as a reference across anophelines, especially non-sequenced P. vivax vectors such as Anopheles albimanus. Clearly, technologies and platforms that bridge this substantial scientific gap are required in order to provide public health scientists with key transcriptomic and proteomic information that could spur the development of novel interventions to combat this disease. To our knowledge, no approaches have been published that address this issue. To bolster our understanding of P. vivax-An. albimanus midgut interactions, we developed an integrated bioinformatic-hybrid RNA-Seq-LC-MS/MS approach involving An. albimanus transcriptome (15,764 contigs) and luminal midgut subproteome (9,445 proteins) assembly, which, when used with our custom Diptera protein database (685,078 sequences), facilitated a comparative proteomic analysis of the midgut brush borders of two important malaria vectors, An. gambiae and An. albimanus.

Proteomic profiling of the dioxin-degrading bacterium Sphingomonas wittichii RW1.

Sphingomonas wittichii RW1 is a bacterium of interest due to its ability to degrade polychlorinated dioxins, which represent priority pollutants in the USA and worldwide. Although its genome has been fully sequenced, many questions exist regarding changes in protein expression of S. wittichii RW1 in response to dioxin metabolism. We used difference gel electrophoresis (DIGE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) to identify proteomic changes induced by growth on dibenzofuran, a surrogate for dioxin, as compared to acetate. Approximately 10% of the entire putative proteome of RW1 could be observed. Several components of the dioxin and dibenzofuran degradation pathway were shown to be upregulated, thereby highlighting the utility of using proteomic analyses for studying bioremediation agents. This is the first global protein analysis of a microorganism capable of utilizing the carbon backbone of both polychlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans as the sole source for carbon and energy.

Structural characterization and inhibition of the Plasmodium Atg8-Atg3 interaction.

The autophagy-related proteins are thought to serve multiple functions in Plasmodium and are considered essential to parasite survival and development. We have studied two key interacting proteins, Atg8 and Atg3, of the autophagy pathway in Plasmodium falciparum. These proteins are vital for the formation and elongation of the autophagosome and essential to the process of macroautophagy. Autophagy may be required for conversion of the sporozoite into erythrocytic-infective merozoites and may be crucial for other functions during asexual blood stages. Here we describe the identification of an Atg8 family interacting motif (AIM) in Plasmodium Atg3, which binds Plasmodium Atg8. We determined the co-crystal structure of PfAtg8 with a short Atg3¹°³â»¹¹° peptide, corresponding to this motif, to 2.2 Å resolution. Our in vitro interaction studies are in agreement with our X-ray crystal structure. Furthermore they suggest an important role for a unique Apicomplexan loop absent from human Atg8 homologues. Prevention of the protein-protein interaction of full length PfAtg8 with PfAtg3 was achieved at low micromolar concentrations with a small molecule, 1,2,3-trihydroxybenzene. Together our structural and interaction studies represent a starting point for future antimalarial drug discovery and design for this novel protein-protein interaction.

Ookinete-interacting proteins on the microvillar surface are partitioned into detergent resistant membranes of Anopheles gambiae midguts.

Lipid raft microdomains, a component of detergent resistant membranes (DRMs), are routinely exploited by pathogens during host-cell entry. Multiple membrane-surface proteins mediate Plasmodium ookinete invasion of the Anopheles midgut, a critical step in the parasite life cycle that is successfully targeted by transmission-blocking vaccines (TBV). Given that lipid rafts are a common feature of host-pathogen interactions, we hypothesized that they promote the partitioning of midgut surface proteins and thus facilitate ookinete invasion. In support of this hypothesis, we found that five of the characterized Anopheles TBV candidates, including the leading Anopheles TBV candidate, AgAPN1, are present in Anopheles gambiae DRMs. Therefore, to extend the repertoire of putative midgut ligands that can be targeted by TBVs, we analyzed midgut DRMs by tandem mass spectrometry. We identified 1452 proteins including several markers of DRMs. Since glycosylphosphotidyl inositol (GPI)-anchored proteins partition to DRMs, we characterized the GPI subproteome of An. gambiae midgut brush-border microvilli and found that 96.9% of the proteins identified in the GPI-anchored fractions were also present in DRMs. Our study vastly expands the number of candidate malarial TBV targets for subsequent analysis by the broader community and provides an inferred role for midgut plasmalemma microdomains in ookinete cell invasion.

Identification of wastewater bacteria involved in the degradation of triclocarban and its non-chlorinated congener.

Triclocarban (TCC) is an antimicrobial additive of personal care products that is only partially degraded during wastewater treatment. Bacteria responsible for its transformation are unknown. We obtained wastewater bacteria capable of using as the sole carbon source TCC or its non-chlorinated analog, carbanilide (NCC). Enrichments established using activated sludge amended with TCC and NCC, respectively, were maintained for 1 year through successive transfers. Enrichments displayed exponential growth after 2 weeks, reaching stationary phase after 1 month. The NCC enrichment was shown to accumulate aniline. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of amplified 16S rRNA genes indicated markedly reduced community richness compared to the inoculum and a single, prominent taxonomic unit emerged in both chlorinated and non-chlorinated carbanilide enrichment cultures. Cloned 16S rRNA genes showed both enrichments were dominated by a single genotype related to uncharacterized organisms within the Alcaligenaceae. Of ∼30 sequences from each enrichment, no other organisms were detected in the TCC enrichment while, a small, flanking community of alpha proteobacteria was detected in the NCC enrichment. Study results demonstrate that growth of wastewater bacteria on TCC and its lower chlorinated analog can be linked to bacteria within the family Alcaligenaceae. These organisms are promising agents for the bioremediation of hazardous phenylurea pollutants.

Site-specific introduction of an acetyl-lysine mimic into peptides and proteins by cysteine alkylation.

Protein acetylation on Lys residues is recognized as a significant post-translational modification in cells, but it is often difficult to discern the direct structural and functional effects of individual acetylation events. Here we describe a new tool, methylthiocarbonyl-aziridine, to install acetyl-Lys mimics site-specifically into peptides and proteins by alkylation of Cys residues. We demonstrate that the resultant thiocarbamate modification can be recognized by the Brdt bromodomain and site-specific antiacetyl-Lys antibodies, is resistant to histone deacetylase cleavage, and can confer activation of the histone acetyltransferase Rtt109 by simulating autoacetylation. We also use this approach to obtain functional evidence that acetylation of CK2 protein kinase on Lys102 can stimulate its catalytic activity.

Identification of putative biomarkers for toluene-degrading Burkholderia and pseudomonas by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry and peptide mass fingerprinting.

The use of peptide mass fingerprinting with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was demonstrated to identify and phenotypically characterize toluene-degrading bacteria via biomarkers of degradation and taxonomical classification. Pseudomonas putida F1, P. mendocina KR1, and Burkholderia sp. JS150 were grown on toluene, extracted, electrophoretically separated, and analyzed by MALDI-TOF MS. Catabolic enzymes were identified and results substantiated using tandem MS.

Global screening of human cord blood proteomes for biomarkers of toxic exposure and effect.

BACKGROUND: Exposures of pregnant women to natural and manmade chemicals can lead to negative health effects in the baby, ranging from low birth weight to developmental defects. In some cases, diseases were postulated to have their basis in toxic exposure in utero or in early childhood. Therefore, an understanding of fetal responses to environmental exposures is essential. To that end, cord blood is a readily accessible biofluid whose proteomic makeup remains mostly unexplored when compared with that of adults. OBJECTIVES: Our goal was an initial global assessment of the fetal serum proteome and for the identification of protein biomarkers indicative of toxic in utero exposures related to maternal cigarette smoking. METHODS: Drawing from a repository of 300 samples, we selected umbilical cord blood sera from 12 babies born to six smokers and six nonsmokers and analyzed both sample pools by tandem mass spectrometry in conjunction with isobaric tags (iTRAQ) for protein quantification. RESULTS: We identified 203 proteins, 17 of which were differentially expressed between the cigarette smoke-exposed and control populations. Most of the identified candidate biomarkers were biologically plausible, thereby underscoring the feasibility of screening neonates with global proteomic techniques for biomarkers of exposure and early biological effects triggered by in utero chemical exposures. CONCLUSIONS: This validation study provides an initial view of the proteome of human cord blood sera; it demonstrates the feasibility of identifying therein by use of proteomics, biomarkers of environmental, toxic exposures.

Detection of norovirus capsid protein in authentic standards and in stool extracts by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization and nanospray mass spectrometry.

Mass spectrometry (MS) represents a rapid technique for the identification of microbial monocultures, and its adaptation to the detection of pathogens in real-world samples is a public health and homeland security priority. Norovirus, a leading cause of gastroenteritis in the world, is difficult to monitor because it cannot be cultured outside the human body. The detection of norovirus capsid protein was explored using three common MS-based methods: scanning of intact proteins, peptide mass fingerprinting, and peptide sequencing. Detection of intact target protein was limited by poor selectivity and sensitivity. Detection of up to 16 target peptides by peptide mass fingerprinting allowed for the reproducible and confident (P < 0.05) detection of the 56-kDa norovirus capsid protein in the range of 0.1 x 10(-12) to 50 x 10(-12) mol in authentic standards of recombinant norovirus virus-like particles (VLPs). To explore assay performance in complex matrixes, a non-gel-based, rapid method (2 to 3 h) for virus extraction from human stool was evaluated (72% +/- 12% recovery), and additional analyses were performed on norovirus-free stool extracts fortified with VLPs. Whereas peptide mass fingerprinting was rendered impractical by sample interferences, peptide sequencing using nanospray tandem MS facilitated unambiguous identification of > or =250 fmol of capsid protein in stool extracts. This is the first report on MS-based detection of norovirus, accomplished by using structurally identical, noninfective VLPs at clinically relevant concentrations. It represents an important milestone in the development of assays for surveillance of this category B bioterrorism agent.

Identification and phenotypic characterization of Sphingomonas wittichii strain RW1 by peptide mass fingerprinting using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry.

Mass spectrometry is a potentially attractive means of monitoring the survival and efficacy of bioaugmentation agents, such as the dioxin-mineralizing bacterium Sphingomonas wittichii strain RW1. The biotransformation activity of RW1 phenotypes is determined primarily by the presence and concentration of the dioxin dioxygenase, an enzyme initiating the degradation of both dibenzo-p-dioxin and dibenzofuran (DF). We explored the possibility of identifying and characterizing putative cultures of RW1 by peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) targeting this characteristic phenotypic biomarker. The proteome from cells of RW1--grown on various media in the presence and absence of DF--was partially purified, tryptically digested, and analyzed using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry. Mascot online database queries allowed statistically significant identification of RW1 in disrupted, digested cells (P < 0.01 to 0.05) and in digested whole-cell extracts (P < 0.00001 to 0.05) containing hundreds of proteins, as determined by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Up to 14 peptide ions of the alpha subunit of the dioxin dioxygenase (43% protein coverage) were detected in individual samples. A minimum of 10(7) DF-grown cells was required to identify dioxin degradation-enabled phenotypes. The technique hinges on the detection of multiple characteristic peptides of a biomarker that can reveal at once the identity and phenotypic properties of the microbial host expressing the protein. The results demonstrate the power of PMF of minimally processed microbial cultures as a sensitive and specific technique for the positive identification and phenotypic characterization of certain microorganisms used in biotechnology and bioremediation.