Rafferty Flashcards
What is proteomics?
- the qualitative and quantitative comparison of proteomes under diff conditions to further unravel biological processes
What is the proteome?
- sum of all the proteins in an organism, a tissue, a cell, a subcellular organelle or simply the sample being studied
Why study proteomes, and not just genomes?
- genomes are (largely) fixed, but proteomes dynamic
How much do prot exp levels vary?
- varies hugely
- and not always correlated w/ signif, ie. some of the most important key regulators and signalling mols have v low exp levels
- anywhere between 30-80% of genes expressed at any 1 time in a cell/tissue
How well do the transcriptome and proteome correlate?
- if plot prot abundance against mRNA abundance, then quite good correlation at higher levels
- but when v few levels of particular mRNA transcripts then no.s don’t correlate well
Why does the mRNA seq ≠ prot seq?
- PTMs: permanent and temporary
- -> prot splicing (inteins)
- -> additions/deletions, eg. glycosylation (one state of prot might be in active form and some in inactive form, and this has effect)
How does proteomics account for diffs between mRNA seqs and the prot seq?
- proteomics seeks to identify and quantify all the prot components taking into account the variations
What diff proteomic analysis methods are there?
- 1D = polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE)
- 2D = SDS-PAGE
- liquid chromatography (LC)
- mass spectrometry
- prot microarrays
What are the advantages and disadvantages of 1D PAGE?
- easy and quick
- but poor resolution –> as shows so many proteins, one band may represent many diff prots w/ varying dominance
How does 2D PAGE work?
- separate by protein pI in 1st dimension –> isoelectric focusing gel
- then separate by mass in 2nd dimension = SDS-PAGE
What are the advantages and disadvantages of 2D PAGE?
- each indiv protein could be a single signal, but at most 4/5
- resolution still not great, and can be misled by multiple proteins becoming 1 signal, but much better than 1D
- problems w/ reproducibility, but has become more routine
- messier to set up and labour intensive
What is an eg. of how 2D PAGE can be a useful technique?
- comp B. thailandensis (not pathogenic) w/ B. pseudomallei (v pathogenic)
- v similar genomes, so comp proteomes, can see what diffs there are and ask if these particular prots have a functional role in pathogenesis of B. pseudomallei
How does liquid chromatography (LC) work?
- separation of whole prots or peptide fragments in solution
- can detect w/ anion/cation, reverse phase (RP) (looks at hydrophobicity properties), affinity (‘natural’) or tags
- -> fractionation of samples
What is the main technique behind proteomics?
- mass spec
How does mass spec work?
- separate samples on the basis of mass (m) : charge (z) ratio (m/z)
What are the diff parts of a mass spectrometer?
- DIAG*
- a part to prod ionised forms of sample in the gas phase
- a device to separate ions out by m/z ratio
- a device to detect diff ions and gen a signal
What state must ions be in for mass spec?
- gas
How can ions be ionised for mass spec?
- some species naturally ionised
- or can be gen by molecular collisions –> typically addition or removal of protons:
M + nH+ → [M + H]n+
(or M → Mn- + nH+)
What are the 2 primary means for generating ionised samples?
- Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI)
- Electrospray ionisation (ESI)
How does MALDI work?
- sample mixed w/ matrix compound
- laser strikes matrix, puts energy into system and species becomes ionised
- causes particles to fly to 1 side of chamber (ie. if gen +ve species then to -ve side of chamber), through chamber wall and these charged gaseous particles can enter next stage of process
What is an advantage of MALDI?
- can archive sample as don’t blast everything in 1 go and can reanalyse
How does ESI work?
- solution of proteins/peptides fired down finely drawn capillary
- end of capillary is charged, so eventually fire out charged droplets from the end
- then put them into evaporation chamber
- droplets become smaller as lose water
- so repulsion increases and eventually burst apart into gas phase
What is an advantage of ESI?
- can use for larger prots, as charge picked up is greater, so m/z ratio is smaller, which is more tractable for downstream analysis of whats in the sample
Is MALDI or ESI used more?
- MALDI
Can MALDI/ESI be performed on all samples?
- some samples can only be used w/ 1 (but this is only around 20%), eg. some species don’t fly so difficult to get them into gaseous phase
What diff approaches/devices are used to separate out the diff ion species based on their m/z ratio, ie. mass analyser?
- time of flight (TOF) (ie. speed of movement), gives indication of size of particle
- quadrupole
- ion trap
- fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance
How does TOF work as a mass analyser?
- can shoot down long tube from source to a detector
- or can make path longer, to increase resolution, as has to travel further
- ions w/ smaller mass can travel faster, so can determine sample composition by order hit the detector
How do quadrupoles work as mass analysers?
- can select out diff charge ratios from sample, instead of waiting for them to arrive at the detector (as in TOF)
- applying radiofrequency field to change rod charge to divert particles of given size, so only certain particles pass all the way t/ to detector at far end
- can correlate this to size of particles
How do ion traps work as mass analysers?
- can be even more selective by holding sample of charged particles in chamber and call them out 1 at a time
- fire them into a chamber
- ringed electrode around interior of chamber holds mass of charged particles in a bunch
- 2 more electrodes on ends of chamber, 1 where come in and 1 where leave –> can adjust this charge to pull out certain particles and cause them to fly out to detector
Are mass analyser methods used alone?
- often used in conjunction and not in isolation
What can ion traps often be used in conjunction w/ and why?
- quadrupoles to fractionate sample first
How does FT-ICR work as a mass analyser
- hold pulse of samples in chamber, then apply field to get them to circulate
- causing them to start to split up into smaller and larger ones etc.
- this gives back a signal, as they pass detectors
- speed of circular motion is dep on size of particle
- can thus measure path of particle in chamber and directly measure
How does orbitrap work as a mass analyser?
- combines a no. of other diff approaches
- put packet of charged particles into chamber, traps them, then does direct measurement to find ions
- enables interaction w/ sample and to scan across diff ranges, to prod spectrum
What diff types of mass spec detectors are there?
- channel electron multipliers (CEM)
- micro channel photomultiplier plates (MCP)
How do mass spec detectors work?
- convert impacts of ions on their surfaces into electric voltage signal that can be amplified and read-out to detect presence and quantity of an ion species
How do types of detectors vary according to the mass analyser?
- detection system designed to suit types of devices upstream
- typically:
- -> quadrupole and ion trap = CEM
- -> TOF = MCP
- in FT-ICR and Orbitrap the analyser itself is also the detector
What does a simple MS spectrum show?
- shows signal strength of diff mass charge ratio values
- get set of diff peaks, as diff mols have diff charges but same mass, hence diff ratio
- this is used to work backwards and find mass of particle which would give this distribution of peaks
What is isotopic abundance and how is it found?
- get isotopic mass envelope of sizes, as when C12 replaced by C13 then affects peaks
- calculate monoisotopic mass back from these envelopes
- req upstream processing of data
Why is high power computing req to interpret complex spectrums?
- w/ multiple prots get overlapping signals
What do spacings between peaks in an isotopic envelope reflect?
- both mass change and charge of the ion species
How is the average mass of a peptide or prot envelope calculated?
- calc from the centroid of the distribution not just the middle value of the distribution
What is resolution in terms of mass spec, and how is this measured?
- the ability to detect 2 diff ions
- often measured as the mass divided by the peak width at half max height, so bigger values = better resolution
How is accuracy of mass spec calc?
- mass (exptal) - mass (theoretical)
/ Mass (theoretical)
x 1,000,000 - expressed as parts per million (ppm), thus lower values show higher accuracy
How is species charge (z) calculated?
- if 2 peaks can assume that heavier comes from the mass of the protein plus an extra proton
- mass charge ratio = mass + any charges / charge
- do simultaneous equations and can rearrange to find value of z
After z calculated, how is mass spec next analysed?
- then able to calculate mass
- use mass to search database for corresponding known prot mass
- okay if known prot as can compare this to expected mass, but if problems if doing proteomics of large no.s of prots in a sample
What factors can lead to misidentification or failure when searching prot database?
- PTMs that may mislead identification
- prot degradation –> a fragment created in handling w/ a chance match to a known prot
- relative concs from single intensities can be misleading if a particular ion is suppressed (due to problems w/ getting certain ions into gas phase)
- incomplete database –> not all organisms have fully sequenced and annotated genomes (but this is becoming less true)
Why could peptide MS be carried out instead of whole prots?
- aids mass identification
- multiple matches gives confidence to assignment, as can characterise the multiple peptides of the prot
How can proteins be cleaved into smaller peptide fragments for peptide MS?
- chemical fragmentation (eg. cyanide bromide) or enzymatic fragmentation (eg. trypsin)
- have reasonably predictable formation (eg. after Lys or Arg) of peptides of suitable size
- trypsin used as cuts v specifically
- match observed sizes against database –> get a ‘peptide mass fingerprint’
- prod similar spectrum, but shifted to smaller set of units than whole prot
What problems can there be w/ peptide MS and how are these resolved?
- occasional problems w/ size ambiguities (but multiple peptides makes this less likely) and again issues about modifications
- can also consider the results of missed cleavage sites, ie. if 2 peptides joined together, and these themselves can be quite diagnostic
What is MS/MS?
- use of 2 mass analysers to separate/select ion species linked by an additional fragmentation
How does MS/MS work?
- select out 1st ion size, put into chamber and break up by inducing collision to cause dissociation, then separate out ions and generate spectrum
- ratio of precursor to product ion intensities reflects energy of collision
How does peptide ion fragmentation work in MS/MS?
- can cause peptide to break on bonds down main chain
- tend to favourably break at peptide bonds
- resulting in sub-fragments of original peptide
- this additional dissoc gens ‘immonium ions’ whose mass dep on R and are thus characteristic of each AA –> so can identify seq
How is seq identification carried out after MS/MS?
- using b and y series product ions –> extend from N and C-ter respectively
- b-series and presence of immonium ions elsewhere in spectrum also give support to seq interpretation
- sequencing peptides can stop ambiguity by identifying prots which have same mass, but diff sequences
How is database interrogation carried out for MS/MS results?
- a no. of program suites used w/ output from MS analysis to interrogate seq database for ‘hits’ or matches to predicted peptide fragments of all prots in a given genome(s)
- eg. MASCOT, SEQUEST, ProteinPilot
What tolerances can be set w/in database searches for the seq match?
- define how sample prepared
- accept poss missed cleavage sites
- permit inaccuracies in measured values
- allow for fixed and variable PTMs
- inc labelling of samples
Why is the location of a PTM important?
- exact location of mod is essential in many circumstances, eg. phosphorylation
- so if seq can discriminate between when phosphate attached to diff AAs, then can be fundamental to understanding of what happens when treat cell w/ particular inhibitor or agonist etc.
How can the m/z of peptides w/ phosphorylation in 2 diff places be distinguished?
- only by MS/MS sequencing
How can MS/MS be used to distinguish between PTMs?
- can scan for presence or loss of specific ion (eg. phosphorylated residue), as corresponds to release of H3PO4
- on spectre bigger mass corresponds to protein plus eg. phosphate group
- also important to know how this changes w/ time or upon addition of other compounds, eg. signalling molecules
- mixed pops of modified and unmodified samples can be studied simultaneously and picked up in the spectre
What is a workflow for MS/MS?
- cell sample
- protein mixture of cell sample
- affinity column so not looking at every protein in sample, eg. look at phosphoproteins (can skip this step) –> so studies focussed on modified prots in a sample, eg. the phosphoproteome
- then enzyme/chemical cleavage
- can enrich for certain peptides, eg. IMAC (immobilised metal ion affinity column)
- MS/MS
Apart from the presence of a prot in a sample what does proteomics seek to measure?
- the quantity in absolute or relative terms
What approaches are there in proteomics to measure the quantity of prot in a sample?
- label free = does not req mod of sample
- label-based = addition of tags or use of stable isotopes and measure the levels of these
What is the steady state of prot abundance set by?
- transcrip rate (how fast pol can travel)
- translation rate
- RNA decay rate (how susceptible is transcript to degrad)
- prot decay rate (varies widely between prots)
Is MS quantitative?
- not inherently, the response of diff samples will vary based on their own unique properties
- amount ‘A’ cannot be compared directly to amount of ‘B’
How can MS be quantitative
- amount of ‘A’ at time point 1/treatment 1 can be compared against amount of ‘A’ at time point 2/treatment 2
- if samples handled in exactly the same way
What are diff approaches to quantifying prots t/ MS based on?
- proteome coverage (do you want to sample all proteins present, or just a targeted subset)
- dynamic range of sample abundance being measured
- quantitative accuracy req (do you need to know how much exactly or just theres lots of it)
- no. of samples being compared (diff timepoints?)
What are the 2 methods for label-free quantification?
- spectral counting
- ion signal intensity from chromatograms
How does spectral counting quantify prot abundance?
- no. of times (no. of spectra) that a peptide is seen within the collection of a data set indicates abundance
How does ion signal intensity from chromatograms quantify prot abundance?
- experiment links given m/z value to area of peak in LC chromatogram
- combine values for all/multiple peptides from a particular prot
What are some problems with using ion signals from chromatograms to quantify prot abundance?
- needs to be reproducible so reliable and req high mass accuracy for identification
Why are both label-free methods of quantifying prot slightly relative?
- as giving amount as % of total prot in sample
How could label-free methods give an absolute quantity?
- could spike samples w/ heavy peptides
- this is a known peptide of known amount (v low levels), should match peptide in sample but slightly higher isotope, so overall behaviour the same, but shifted slightly on mass spec
- so can be confident when measure actual sample that both will have flown in same way
Do label-free methods involve perturbing the system?
- no, apart from spiking samples
What diff label based quantification methods are there?
- in vitro = attach labels to peptides before/after proteolytic digestion –> ICPL, ICAT, iTRAQ, TMT
- or in vivo = metabolic labelling of samples w/ stable isotopes –> SILAC
What is ICPL and what does it involve? (label based quantification)
- isotope-coded protein labelling of lysine sidechains
- can do variety of diff labels, standard is C12 = ICPL 0
- can build labels where add deuterium, looks chemically the same but heavier mass
- handle and treat in same way, but each reagent subtly diff in mass
- mix together and put in mass spec
- minimalises handling errors
What is ICAT and what does it involve? (label based quantification)
- isotope coded affinity tags
- bind to cysteine
- take mixture 1 and label all w/ light version of reagent, then have a heavy version (eg. w/ deuterium)
- advantage is can deliberately pull out prots which have been labelled as is a biotin tag, and this could simplify mixture, therefore just analyse this subset
- look to see how signal has changed, this gives a relative measure
What is iTRAQ and what does it involve? (label based quantification)
- isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification
- amine group on end where attach tag
- can adjust mass of tag
- can make heavier linker etc
- cause collisions to break tag off
- so measuring mass of tag instead of peptide and tag (shifts spectre)