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Blood serum and plasma are arguably the most commonly analyzed clinical samples, with dozens of proteins serving as validated biomarkers for various human diseases. Top-down proteomics may provide additional insights into disease etiopathogenesis since this approach focuses on protein forms, or proteoforms, originally circulating in blood, potentially providing access to information about relevant post-translational modifications, truncation, single amino acid substitutions and many other sources of protein variation. However, the vast majority of proteomic studies on serum and plasma are carried out using peptide-centric, bottom-up approaches which cannot recapitulate the original proteoform content of samples. Lengthy sample preparation and the need for extensive prefractionation to mitigate proteoform dynamic range issues are likely factors preventing clinical laboratories from routinely performing top-down experiments. In this study, we describe a straightforward protocol for intact proteoform sample preparation based on depletion of albumin and immunoglobulins followed by simplified fractionation of remaining serum proteins via polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. After molecular weight-based fractionation, we supplemented the traditional liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS2) data acquisition with high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS), which served as an additional separation dimension to further simplify serum proteoforms mixtures. This LC-FAIMS-MS2 method led to the identification of over 1,000 serum proteoforms

Voltage-gated sodium channel Na

We are submitting a manuscript describing the application of proton transfer charge reduction to increase the sequence coverage for proteins > 30 kDa using Orbitrap FTMS.

Hsp70 interactions are critical for cellular viability and the response to stress. Previous attempts to characterize Hsp70 interactions have been limited by their transient nature and inability of current technologies to distinguish direct vs bridged interactions. We report the novel use of cross-linking mass spectrometry (XL-MS) to comprehensively characterize the budding yeast Hsp70 protein interactome. In doing so, we have uncovered not only a new set of Hsp70 client proteins but show that these clients bind at multiple sites on Hsp70, including the N-terminal NBD. Notably, many of the Hsp70 interactions with client proteins are in close proximity to biologically important post translational modifications (PTMs). Using this approach, we have gained fundamental new insights into Hsp70 function, including definitive evidence of Hsp70 self-association as well as multi-point interaction with its client proteins. In addition to identifying a novel set of direct Hsp70 interactors which can be used to probe chaperone function in cells, we have also identified a suite of PTM-associated Hsp70 interactions. The majority of these PTMs have not been previously reported and appear to be critical in the regulation of client protein function. These data indicate that one of the mechanisms by which PTMs contribute to protein function is by facilitating interaction with chaperones. Taken together, we propose that XL-MS analysis of chaperone complexes may be used as a unique way to identify biologically important PTMs on client proteins. All in all, our data suggest that our XL-MS approach to chaperone interactome characterization can also be used as a novel way to identify biologically important and previously unknown PTMs on client proteins. Citation Format: Nitika, Jake Kline, Luca Fornelli, Andrew Truman. A novel multifunctional role for Hsp70 in binding post-translational modifications on client proteins [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 3917.

Sumoylation is a powerful regulatory system that controls many of the critical processes in the cell, including DNA repair, transcriptional regulation, nuclear transport, and DNA replication. Recently, new functions for SUMO have begun to emerge. SUMO is covalently attached to components of each of the four major cytoskeletal networks, including microtubule‐associated proteins, septins, and intermediate filaments, in addition to nuclear actin and actin‐regulatory proteins. However, knowledge of the mechanisms by which this signal transduction system controls the cytoskeleton is still in its infancy. One story that is beginning to unfold is that SUMO may regulate the microtubule motor protein dynein by modification of its adaptor Lis1. In other instances, cytoskeletal elements can both bind to SUMO non‐covalently and also be conjugated by it. The molecular mechanisms for many of these new functions are not yet clear, but are under active investigation. One emerging model links the function of MAP sumoylation to protein degradation through SUMO‐targeted ubiquitin ligases, also known as STUbL enzymes. Other possible functions for cytoskeletal sumoylation are also discussed. © 2015 The Authors. Cytoskeleton Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.