Abstract

A global analysis of the human proteome demonstrates that there are ~5500 tryptic fragments that contain four cysteines in close proximity. Elucidating whether they form disulfide bonds in vivo under different conditions is particularly important because cysteines are known to be a vital cellular redox sensor as well as a catalytic site for important biochemical reactions. However, currently there are no methods that can resolve disulfide patterns in closely-packed cysteine residues from a complex sample. In order to address this problem, we have developed a novel mass-spectrometry-based method to identify the different disulfide bonding patterns possible, using SNAP25B cysteine-rich region as a test case. Unlike traditional proteomics, this method uses non-reduced sample preparation, thus preserving intact disulfide bonds. It relies on collision-induced dissociation (CID) to cause double-backbone and heterolytic disulfide-bond cleavage and compares this to the theoretical MS/MS spectra. CID in an ion trap gives robust detection of double backbone cleavages and heterolytic disulfide-bond cleavages. Here, we report, for the first time, identification of all three disulfide patterns for double-disulfide species of SNAP25B using collision-induced dissociation.

Degree

College and Department

Life Sciences; Neuroscience

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/