Quantitative analysis of protein complex constituents and their phosphorylation states on a LTQ-Orbitrap instrument.

Cellular functions are largely carried out by noncovalent protein complexes that may exist within the cell as stable modules or as assemblies of dynamically changing composition, whose formation and decomposition are triggered in response to extracellular stimuli. The protein constituents of complexes often exhibit post-translational modifications such as phosphorylation that can impact their ability to interact with other proteins and thus to form multicomponent complexes. A complete characterization of a particular protein complex thus requires determining both, the identity of interacting proteins and their covalent modifications, in terms of attachment sites and stoichiometry. We have previously developed a protocol which identifies genuine constituents of partially purified protein complexes and concurrently determines their phosphorylation sites and levels in a single LC−MS/MS analysis performed on a MALDI-TOF/TOF instrument (Pflieger, D.; Junger, M. A.; Muller, M.; Rinner, O.; Lee, H.; Gehrig, P. M...