Method to Site-Specifically Identify and Quantitate Carbonyl End Products of Protein Oxidation Using Oxidation-Dependent Element Coded Affinity Tags (O-ECAT) and NanoLiquid Chromatography Fourier Transform Mass Spectrometry

Protein oxidation is linked to cellular stress, aging, and disease. Protein oxidations that result in reactive species are of particular interest, since these reactive oxidation products may react with other proteins or biomolecules in an unmediated and irreversible fashion, providing a potential marker for a variety of disease mechanisms. We have developed a novel system to identify and quantitate, relative to other states, the sites of oxidation on a given protein. A specially designed Oxidation-dependent carbonyl-specific Element-Coded Affinity Mass Tag (O-ECAT), AOD, ((S)-2-(4-(2-aminooxy)-acetamido)-benzyl)-1, 4, 7, 10-tetraazacyclododecane-N, N', N'', N'''-tetraacetic acid, is used to covalently tag the residues of a protein oxidized to aldehyde or keto end products. After proteolysis, the resulting AOD-tagged peptides are affinity purified, and analyzed by nanoLC-FTICR-MS, which provides high specificity in extracting co-eluting AOD mass pairs with a unique mass difference and affords relative quantitation based on isotopic ratios. Using this methodology, we have mapped the surface oxidation sites on a model protein, recombinant human serum albumin (rHSA) in its native form (as purchased) and after FeEDTA oxidation. A variety of modified amino acid residues including lysine, arginine, proline, histidine, threonine, aspartic and glutamic acids, were found to be oxidized to aldehyde and keto end products.more » The sensitivity of this methodology is shown by the number of peptides identified, twenty peptides on the native protein and twenty-nine after surface oxidation using FeEDTA and ascorbate. All identified peptides map to the surface of the HSA crystal structure validating this method for identifying oxidized amino acids on protein surfaces. In relative quantitation experiments between FeEDTA oxidation and native protein oxidation, identified sites showed different relative propensities towards oxidation independent of amino acid residue. We expect to extend this methodology to study disease-related oxidation systems.« less