Leveraging capillary zone electrophoresis-mass spectrometry for multi-level proteomics / Xiaojing Shen.

Mass spectrometry (MS) coupled with online liquid-phase separation is the major tool for large-scale bottom-up proteomics (peptide-centric), top-down proteomics (proteoform-centric), and native proteomics (protein complex-centric). While liquid chromatography (LC)-MS is the dominant method for proteomics at different levels, capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE)-MS has emerged as a valuable and complementary technique, which provides high-capacity separation and highly sensitive detection of peptides, proteoforms and even protein complexes under native conditions. This work focuses on developing novel CZE-MS/MS methods for multi-level proteomics (bottom-up, top-down, and native).In Chapter 2, a high-throughput bottom-up proteomics workflow was developed by coupling immobilized trypsin-based speedy protein digestion with fast CZE-MS/MS. Immobilized trypsin produced almost the same digestion performance as free trypsin for complex proteomes with about 50-times higher speed (15 min vs. 12 h). Integration of immobilized trypsin (IM)-based rapid protein cleavage and fast CZE-MS/MS enables the identification of thousands of proteins from the mouse brain proteome in only 3 h, which is significantly faster than the typical LC-MS-based bottom-up proteomics workflow (3 h vs. >12 h). The high-throughput workflow was expected to be useful for bottom-up proteomics of human clinical samples (e.g., serum and urine).Chapter 3 presents the first example of CZE-MS/MS with activated ion-electron capture dissociation (AI-ECD) on a high-end quadrupole-time-of-flight (Q-TOF) mass spectrometer for top-down proteomics, enabling high-resolution separation, highly sensitive detection, and extensive gas-phase backbone cleavages of proteoforms. The CZE-AI-ECD method will be useful to the top-down proteomics community for the comprehensive characterization of proteoforms in complex proteomes. Chapter 4 and 5 focus on the development of novel CZE-MS methods for native proteomics, delineating proteins and protein complexes under native conditions. In Chapter 4, a native CZE-MS/MS platform with an Orbitrap mass spectrometer was established for native proteomics of a complex proteome (E. coli), leading to the identification of 23 protein complexes in discovery mode. The work represents the first example of native proteomics via coupling online liquid-phase separation to native MS and MS/MS. The characterization of large protein complexes (up to 200 kDa) was also achieved with a new CZE-MS system on a high-end Q-TOF mass spectrometer.In Chapter 5, a novel native capillary isoelectric focusing (cIEF)-assisted CZE-MS method is presented for the characterization of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with large sample loading capacity and high separation resolution. Using the method, the potential separations of different conformations of the SigmaMAb and the detection of its various glyco-proteoforms and homodimer were documented. The method separated the NISTmAb into three peaks with a microliter sample loading volume, corresponding to its different proteoforms. In addition, eight glyco-proteoforms of the NISTmAb and its homodimer were detected. The results demonstrate the potential of the native cIEF-assisted CZE-MS method for advancing the characterization of large proteins (i.e., mAbs) and protein complexes under native conditions.

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