An effective preparation method of phosphopeptides from phosvitin and the analysis of peptide profiles using tandem mass spectrometry

The effect of high-temperature and mild pressure (HTMP) pretreatment on the enzymatic hydrolysis of phosvitin and the structural characteristics of the phosphopeptides produced were analyzed using tandem mass spectrometry. The HTMP pretreatment hydrolyzed phosvitin at random sites and helped the subsequent enzyme hydrolysis of the peptides produced. With the HTMP pretreatment alone, 154 peptides were produced while the use of trypsin, Protex 6L, and Multifect 14L in combination with pretreatment produced 252, 280 and 164 peptides, respectively. The use of two enzyme combinations (Trypsin + Protex 6L and trypsin + Multifect 14L) helped the hydrolysis further. The number of phosphopeptides produced increased when the modifications within the same amino acid sequences were considered. This study indicated that HTMP pretreatment was a better method to improve the enzymatic hydrolysis of phosvitin that enabled an easy production of phosvitin phosphopeptides (PPPs) for their subsequent functional characterizations.