Metabolome-wide association identifies altered metabolites and metabolic pathways in the serum of patients with cholangiocarcinoma.

Background & Aims: Metabolomic and lipidomic analyses provide an opportunity for novel biological insights. Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) remains a highly lethal cancer with limited response to systemic, targeted, and immunotherapeutic approaches. Using a global metabolomics and lipidomics platform, this study aimed to discover and characterize metabolomic variations and associated pathway derangements in patients with CCA. Methods: Leveraging a biospecimen collection, including samples from patients with digestive diseases and normal controls, global serum metabolomic and lipidomic profiling was performed on 213 patients with CCA and 98 healthy controls. The CCA cohort of patients included representation of intrahepatic, perihilar, and distal CCA tumours. Metabolome-wide association studies utilizing multivariable linear regression were used to perform case-control comparisons, followed by pathway enrichment analysis, CCA subtype analysis, and disease stage analysis. The impact of biliary obstruction was evaluated by repeating analyses in subsets of patients only with normal bilirubin levels. Results: Of the 420 metabolites that discriminated patients with CCA from controls, decreased abundance of cysteine-glutathione disulfide was most closely associated with CCA. Additional conjugated bile acid species were found in increased abundance even in the absence of clinically relevant biliary obstruction denoted by elevated serum bilirubin levels. Pathway enrichment analysis also revealed alterations in caffeine metabolism and mitochondrial redox-associated pathways in the serum of patients with CCA. Conclusions: The presented metabolomic and lipidomic profiling demonstrated multiple alterations in the serum of patients with CCA. These exploratory data highlight novel metabolic pathways in CCA and support future work in therapeutic targeting of these pathways and the development of a precision biomarker panel for diagnosis. Impact and implications: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a highly lethal hepatobiliary cancer with limited treatment response, highlighting the need for a better understanding of the disease biology. Using a global metabolomics and lipidomics platform, we characterized distinct changes in the serum of 213 patients with CCA compared with healthy controls. The results of this study elucidate novel metabolic pathways in CCA. These findings benefit stakeholders in both the clinical and research realms by providing a foundation for improved disease diagnostics and identifying novel targets for therapeutic design.

Multicolumn Nanoflow Liquid Chromatography with Accelerated Offline Gradient Generation for Robust and Sensitive Single-Cell Proteome Profiling.

Peptide separations that combine high sensitivity, robustness, peak capacity, and throughput are essential for extending bottom-up proteomics to smaller samples including single cells. To this end, we have developed a multicolumn nanoLC system with offline gradient generation. One binary pump generates gradients in an accelerated fashion to support multiple analytical columns, and a single trap column interfaces with all analytical columns to reduce required maintenance and simplify troubleshooting. A high degree of parallelization is possible, as one sample undergoes separation while the next sample plus its corresponding mobile phase gradient are transferred into the storage loop and a third sample is loaded into a sample loop. Selective offline elution from the trap column into the sample loop prevents salts and hydrophobic species from entering the analytical column, thus greatly enhancing column lifetime and system robustness. With this design, samples can be analyzed as fast as every 20 min at a flow rate of just 40 nL/min with close to 100% MS utilization time and continuously for as long as several months without column replacement. We utilized the system to analyze the proteomes of single cells from a multiple myeloma cell line upon treatment with the immunomodulatory imide drug lenalidomide.

Defining albumin as a glycoprotein with multiple N-linked glycosylation sites.

BACKGROUND: Glycosylation is an enzyme-catalyzed post-translational modification that is distinct from glycation and is present on a majority of plasma proteins. N-glycosylation occurs on asparagine residues predominantly within canonical N-glycosylation motifs (Asn-X-Ser/Thr) although non-canonical N-glycosylation motifs Asn-X-Cys/Val have also been reported. Albumin is the most abundant protein in plasma whose glycation is well-studied in diabetes mellitus. However, albumin has long been considered a non-glycosylated protein due to absence of canonical motifs. Albumin contains two non-canonical N-glycosylation motifs, of which one was recently reported to be glycosylated. METHODS: We enriched abundant serum proteins to investigate their N-linked glycosylation followed by trypsin digestion and glycopeptide enrichment by size-exclusion or mixed-mode anion-exchange chromatography. Glycosylation at canonical as well as non-canonical sites was evaluated by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) of enriched glycopeptides. Deglycosylation analysis was performed to confirm N-linked glycosylation at non-canonical sites. Albumin-derived glycopeptides were fragmented by MS3 to confirm attached glycans. Parallel reaction monitoring was carried out on twenty additional samples to validate these findings. Bovine and rabbit albumin-derived glycopeptides were similarly analyzed by LC-MS/MS. RESULTS: Human albumin is N-glycosylated at two non-canonical sites, Asn68 and Asn123. N-glycopeptides were detected at both sites bearing four complex sialylated glycans and validated by MS3-based fragmentation and deglycosylation studies. Targeted mass spectrometry confirmed glycosylation in twenty additional donor samples. Finally, the highly conserved Asn123 in bovine and rabbit serum albumin was also found to be glycosylated. CONCLUSIONS: Albumin is a glycoprotein with conserved N-linked glycosylation sites that could have potential clinical applications.

The Mayo Clinic Salivary Tissue-Organoid Biobanking: A Resource for Salivary Regeneration Research.

The salivary gland (SG) is an essential organ that secretes saliva, which supports versatile oral function throughout life, and is maintained by elusive epithelial stem and progenitor cells (SGSPC). Unfortunately, aging, drugs, autoimmune disorders, and cancer treatments can lead to salivary dysfunction and associated health consequences. Despite many ongoing therapeutic efforts to mediate those conditions, investigating human SGSPC is challenging due to lack of standardized tissue collection, limited tissue access, and inadequate purification methods. Herein, we established a diverse and clinically annotated salivary regenerative biobanking at the Mayo Clinic, optimizing viable salivary cell isolation and clonal assays in both 2D and 3D-matrigel growth environments. Our analysis identified ductal epithelial cells in vitro enriched with SGSPC expressing the CD24/EpCAM/CD49f+ and PSMA- phenotype. We identified PSMA expression as a reliable SGSPC differentiation marker. Moreover, we identified progenitor cell types with shared phenotypes exhibiting three distinct clonal patterns of salivary differentiation in a 2D environment. Leveraging innovative label-free unbiased LC-MS/MS-based single-cell proteomics, we identified 819 proteins across 71 single cell proteome datasets from purified progenitor-enriched parotid gland (PG) and sub-mandibular gland (SMG) cultures. We identified distinctive co-expression of proteins, such as KRT1/5/13/14/15/17/23/76 and 79, exclusively observed in rare, scattered salivary ductal basal cells, indicating the potential de novo source of SGSPC. We also identified an entire class of peroxiredoxin peroxidases, enriched in PG than SMG, and attendant H2O2-dependent cell proliferation in vitro suggesting a potential role for PRDX-dependent floodgate oxidative signaling in salivary homeostasis. The distinctive clinical resources and research insights presented here offer a foundation for exploring personalized regenerative medicine.

Exploration of Nitrotyrosine-Containing Proteins and Peptides by Antibody-Based Enrichment Strategies.

Nitrotyrosine, or 3-nitrotyrosine, is an oxidative post-translational modification induced by reactive nitrogen species. Although nitrotyrosine is considered a marker of oxidative stress and has been associated with inflammation, neurodegeneration, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, identification of nitrotyrosine-modified proteins remains challenging owing to its low stoichiometric levels in biological samples. To facilitate a comprehensive analysis of proteins and peptides containing nitrotyrosine, we optimized an immunoprecipitation-based enrichment workflow using a cell line model. The identification of proteins and peptides containing nitrotyrosine residues was carried out after peroxynitrite treatment of cell lysates, which generated modified nitrotyrosine residues on susceptible sites on proteins. We evaluated the efficacy of enriching nitrotyrosine-modified proteins and peptides by employing four different commercially available monoclonal antibodies directed against nitrotyrosine. LC-MS/MS analysis resulted in the identification of 1377 and 1624 nitrotyrosine-containing peptides from protein- and peptide-based enrichment experiments, respectively. Although the yield of nitrotyrosine-containing peptides was higher in experiments where peptides rather than proteins were enriched, we found a substantial proportion (37-65%) of identified nitrotyrosine-containing peptides contained nitrotyrosine at the N-terminus. However, in protein-based immunoprecipitation <9% of nitrotyrosine-containing peptides had nitrotyrosine modification at the N-terminus of the peptide. Overall, our study resulted in the identification of 2603 nitrotyrosine-containing peptides of which >2000 have not previously been reported. We synthesized 101 novel nitrotyrosine-containing peptides identified in our analysis and analyzed them by LC-MS/MS to validate our findings. We have confirmed the validity of 70% of these peptides, as they demonstrated a similarity score exceeding 0.7 when compared to peptides identified through experimental methods. Finally, we also validated the presence of nitrotyrosine modification on PKM and EF2 proteins in peroxynitrite-treated samples by immunoblot analysis. The large catalog presented in this study along with the workflow should facilitate the investigation of nitrotyrosine as an oxidative modification in a variety of settings in greater detail.

sBioSITe enables sensitive identification of the cell surface proteome through direct enrichment of biotinylated peptides.

BACKGROUND: Cell surface proteins perform critical functions related to immune response, signal transduction, cell-cell interactions, and cell migration. Expression of specific cell surface proteins can determine cell-type identity, and can be altered in diseases including infections, cancer and genetic disorders. Identification of the cell surface proteome remains a challenge despite several enrichment methods exploiting their biochemical and biophysical properties. METHODS: Here, we report a novel method for enrichment of proteins localized to cell surface. We developed this new approach designated surface Biotinylation Site Identification Technology (sBioSITe) by adapting our previously published method for direct identification of biotinylated peptides. In this strategy, the primary amine groups of lysines on proteins on the surface of live cells are first labeled with biotin, and subsequently, biotinylated peptides are enriched by anti-biotin antibodies and analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). RESULTS: By direct detection of biotinylated lysines from PC-3, a prostate cancer cell line, using sBioSITe, we identified 5851 peptides biotinylated on the cell surface that were derived from 1409 proteins. Of these proteins, 533 were previously shown or predicted to be localized to the cell surface or secreted extracellularly. Several of the identified cell surface markers have known associations with prostate cancer and metastasis including CD59, 4F2 cell-surface antigen heavy chain (SLC3A2) and adhesion G protein-coupled receptor E5 (CD97). Importantly, we identified several biotinylated peptides derived from plectin and nucleolin, both of which are not annotated in surface proteome databases but have been shown to have aberrant surface localization in certain cancers highlighting the utility of this method. CONCLUSIONS: Detection of biotinylation sites on cell surface proteins using sBioSITe provides a reliable method for identifying cell surface proteins. This strategy complements existing methods for detection of cell surface expressed proteins especially in discovery-based proteomics approaches.

Automated Sample Preparation Workflow for Tandem Mass Tag-Based Proteomics.

Although tandem mass tag (TMT)-based isobaric labeling has become a powerful approach for multiplexed protein quantitation, automating the workflow for this technique has not been easy to achieve for widespread adoption. This is because preparation of TMT-labeled peptide samples involves multiple steps ranging from protein extraction, denaturation, reduction, and alkylation to tryptic digestion, desalting, labeling, and cleanup, all of which require a high level of proficiency. The variability resulting from multiple processing steps is inherently problematic, especially with large-scale clinical studies that involve hundreds of samples where reproducibility is critical for quantitation. Here, we sought to compare the performance of a recently introduced platform, AccelerOme, for an automated proteomic workflow employing TMT labeling with the manual processing of samples. Cell pellets were prepared and subjected to a 16-plex experiment using an automated platform and a conventional manual protocol. Single-shot liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry analysis revealed a higher number of proteins and peptides identified using the automated platform. Efficiency of tryptic digestion, alkylation, and TMT labeling were similar in both manual and automated processes. In addition, comparison of quantitation accuracy and precision showed similar performance in an automated workflow compared to manual sample preparation by an expert. Overall, we demonstrated that the automated platform performs at a level similar to a manual process performed by an expert for TMT-based proteomics. We anticipate that this automated workflow will increasingly replace manual pipelines and has the potential to be applied to large-scale TMT-based studies, providing robust results and high sample throughput.

Optimizing single cell proteomics using trapped ion mobility spectrometry for label-free experiments.

Although single cell RNA-seq has had a tremendous impact on biological research, a corresponding technology for unbiased mass spectrometric analysis of single cells has only recently become available. Significant technological breakthroughs including miniaturized sample handling have enabled proteome profiling of single cells. Furthermore, trapped ion mobility spectrometry (TIMS) in combination with parallel accumulation-serial fragmentation operated in data-dependent acquisition mode (DDA-PASEF) allowed improved proteome coverage from low-input samples. It has been demonstrated that modulating the ion flux in TIMS affects the overall performance of proteome profiling. However, the effect of TIMS settings on the analysis of low-input samples has been less investigated. Thus, we sought to optimize the conditions of TIMS with regard to ion accumulation/ramp times and ion mobility range for low-input samples. We observed that an ion accumulation time of 180 ms and monitoring a narrower ion mobility range from 0.7 to 1.3 V s cm-2 resulted in a substantial gain in the depth of proteome coverage and in detecting proteins with low abundance. We used these optimized conditions for proteome profiling of sorted human primary T cells, which yielded an average of 365, 804, 1116, and 1651 proteins from single, five, ten, and forty T cells, respectively. Notably, we demonstrated that the depth of proteome coverage from a low number of cells was sufficient to delineate several essential metabolic pathways and the T cell receptor signaling pathway. Finally, we showed the feasibility of detecting post-translational modifications including phosphorylation and acetylation from single cells. We believe that such an approach could be applied to label-free analysis of single cells obtained from clinically relevant samples.

Four-dimensional proteomics analysis of human cerebrospinal fluid with trapped ion mobility spectrometry using PASEF.

A quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer coupled with a trapped ion mobility spectrometry (timsTOF) operated in parallel accumulation-serial fragmentation (PASEF) mode has recently emerged as a platform capable of providing four-dimensional (4D) features comprising of elution time, collision cross section (CCS), mass-to-charge ratio, and intensity of peptides. The PASEF mode provides ∼100% ion sampling efficiency both in data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and data-independent acquisition (DIA) modes without sacrificing sensitivity. In addition, targeted measurements using PASEF integrated parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) mode have also been described. However, only limited number of studies have used timsTOF for analysis of clinical samples. Although Orbitrap mass spectrometers have been used for biomarker discovery from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in a variety of neurological diseases, these Orbitrap-derived datasets cannot readily be applied for driving experiments on timsTOF mass spectrometers. We generated a catalog of peptides and proteins in human CSF in DDA mode on a timsTOF mass spectrometer and used these data to build a spectral library. This strategy allowed us to use elution times and ion mobility values from the spectral library to design PRM experiments for quantifying previously discovered biomarkers from CSF samples in Alzheimer's disease. When the same samples were analyzed using a DIA approach combined with a spectral library search, a higher number of proteins were identified than in a library-free approach. Overall, we have established a spectral library of CSF as a resource and demonstrated its utility for PRM and DIA studies, which should facilitate studies of neurological disorders.

Proteogenomic landscape of human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in an Asian population reveals tumor cell-enriched and immune-rich subtypes.

We report a proteogenomic analysis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Mutation-phosphorylation correlations identified signaling pathways associated with somatic mutations in significantly mutated genes. Messenger RNA-protein abundance correlations revealed potential prognostic biomarkers correlated with patient survival. Integrated clustering of mRNA, protein and phosphorylation data identified six PDAC subtypes. Cellular pathways represented by mRNA and protein signatures, defining the subtypes and compositions of cell types in the subtypes, characterized them as classical progenitor (TS1), squamous (TS2-4), immunogenic progenitor (IS1) and exocrine-like (IS2) subtypes. Compared with the mRNA data, protein and phosphorylation data further classified the squamous subtypes into activated stroma-enriched (TS2), invasive (TS3) and invasive-proliferative (TS4) squamous subtypes. Orthotopic mouse PDAC models revealed a higher number of pro-tumorigenic immune cells in TS4, inhibiting T cell proliferation. Our proteogenomic analysis provides significantly mutated genes/biomarkers, cellular pathways and cell types as potential therapeutic targets to improve stratification of patients with PDAC.

LCK inhibition downregulates YAP activity and is therapeutic in patient-derived models of cholangiocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: There is an unmet need to develop novel, effective medical therapies for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). The Hippo pathway effector, Yes-associated protein (YAP), is oncogenic in CCA, but has historically been difficult to target therapeutically. Recently, we described a novel role for the LCK proto-oncogene, Src family tyrosine kinase (LCK) in activating YAP through tyrosine phosphorylation. This led to the hypothesis that LCK is a viable therapeutic target in CCA via regulation of YAP activity. METHODS: A novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor with relative selectivity for LCK, NTRC 0652-0, was pharmacodynamically profiled in vitro and in CCA cells. A panel of eight CCA patient-derived organoids were characterized and tested for sensitivity to NTRC 0652-0. Two patient-derived xenograft models bearing fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2)-rearrangements were utilized for in vivo assessment of pharmacokinetics, toxicity, and efficacy. RESULTS: NTRC 0652-0 demonstrated selectivity for LCK inhibition in vitro and in CCA cells. LCK inhibition with NTRC 0652-0 led to decreased tyrosine phosphorylation, nuclear localization, and co-transcriptional activity of YAP, and resulted in apoptotic cell death in CCA cell lines. A subset of tested patient-derived organoids demonstrated sensitivity to NTRC 0652-0. CCAs with FGFR2 fusions were identified as a potentially susceptible and clinically relevant genetic subset. In patient-derived xenograft models of FGFR2 fusion-positive CCA, daily oral treatment with NTRC 0652-0 resulted in stable plasma and tumor drug levels, acceptable toxicity, decreased YAP tyrosine phosphorylation, and significantly decreased tumor growth. CONCLUSIONS: A novel LCK inhibitor, NTRC 0652-0, inhibited YAP signaling and demonstrated preclinical efficacy in CCA cell lines, and patient-derived organoid and xenograft models. IMPACT AND IMPLICATIONS: Although aberrant YAP activation is frequently seen in CCA, YAP targeted therapies are not yet clinically available. Herein we show that a novel LCK-selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor (NTRC 0652-0) effectively inhibits YAP tyrosine phosphorylation and cotranscriptional activity and is well tolerated and cytotoxic in multiple preclinical models. The data suggest this approach may be effective in CCA with YAP dependence or FGFR2 fusions, and these findings warrant further investigation in phase I clinical trials.

Reinspection of a Clinical Proteomics Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) Dataset with Cloud Computing Reveals Abundant Post-Translational Modifications and Protein Sequence Variants.

The Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) has provided some of the most in-depth analyses of the phenotypes of human tumors ever constructed. Today, the majority of proteomic data analysis is still performed using software housed on desktop computers which limits the number of sequence variants and post-translational modifications that can be considered. The original CPTAC studies limited the search for PTMs to only samples that were chemically enriched for those modified peptides. Similarly, the only sequence variants considered were those with strong evidence at the exon or transcript level. In this multi-institutional collaborative reanalysis, we utilized unbiased protein databases containing millions of human sequence variants in conjunction with hundreds of common post-translational modifications. Using these tools, we identified tens of thousands of high-confidence PTMs and sequence variants. We identified 4132 phosphorylated peptides in nonenriched samples, 93% of which were confirmed in the samples which were chemically enriched for phosphopeptides. In addition, our results also cover 90% of the high-confidence variants reported by the original proteogenomics study, without the need for sample specific next-generation sequencing. Finally, we report fivefold more somatic and germline variants that have an independent evidence at the peptide level, including mutations in ERRB2 and BCAS1. In this reanalysis of CPTAC proteomic data with cloud computing, we present an openly available and searchable web resource of the highest-coverage proteomic profiling of human tumors described to date.

Extensive heterogeneity of glycopeptides in plasma revealed by deep glycoproteomic analysis using size-exclusion chromatography.

Several plasma glycoproteins are clinically useful as biomarkers in a variety of diseases. Although thousands of proteins are present in plasma, >95% of the plasma proteome by mass is represented by only 22 proteins. This necessitates strategies to deplete the abundant proteins and enrich other subsets of proteins. Although glycoproteins are abundant in plasma, in routine proteomic analyses, glycopeptides are not often investigated. Traditional methods such as lectin-based enrichment of glycopeptides followed by deglycosylation have helped understand the glycoproteome, but they lack any information about the attached glycans. Here, we apply size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) as a simple strategy to enrich intact N-glycopeptides based on their larger size which achieves broad selectivity regardless of the nature of attached glycans. Using this approach, we identified 1317 N-glycopeptides derived from 266 glycosylation sites on 154 plasma glycoproteins. The deep coverage achieved by this approach was evidenced by extensive heterogeneity that was observed. For instance, 20-100 glycopeptides were observed per protein for the 15 most-glycosylated glycoproteins. Notably, we discovered 615 novel glycopeptides of which 39 glycosylation sites (from 38 glycoproteins) were not included in protein databases such as Uniprot and GlyConnectDB. Finally, we also identified 12 novel glycopeptides containing di-sialic acid, which is a rare glycan epitope. Our results demonstrate the utility of SEC for efficient LC-MS/MS-based deep glycoproteomics analysis of human plasma. Overall, the SEC-based method described here is a simple, rapid and high-throughput strategy for characterization of any glycoproteome.

Proteomic Signature of Host Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infection in the Nasopharynx.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, has become a global health pandemic. COVID-19 severity ranges from an asymptomatic infection to a severe multiorgan disease. Although the inflammatory response has been implicated in the pathogenesis of COVID-19, the exact nature of dysregulation in signaling pathways has not yet been elucidated, underscoring the need for further molecular characterization of SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans. Here, we characterize the host response directly at the point of viral entry through analysis of nasopharyngeal swabs. Multiplexed high-resolution MS-based proteomic analysis of confirmed COVID-19 cases and negative controls identified 7582 proteins and revealed significant upregulation of interferon-mediated antiviral signaling in addition to multiple other proteins that are not encoded by interferon-stimulated genes or well characterized during viral infections. Downregulation of several proteasomal subunits, E3 ubiquitin ligases, and components of protein synthesis machinery was significant upon SARS-CoV-2 infection. Targeted proteomics to measure abundance levels of MX1, ISG15, STAT1, RIG-I, and CXCL10 detected proteomic signatures of interferon-mediated antiviral signaling that differentiated COVID-19-positive from COVID-19-negative cases. Phosphoproteomic analysis revealed increased phosphorylation of several proteins with known antiviral properties as well as several proteins involved in ciliary function (CEP131 and CFAP57) that have not previously been implicated in the context of coronavirus infections. In addition, decreased phosphorylation levels of AKT and PKC, which have been shown to play varying roles in different viral infections, were observed in infected individuals relative to controls. These data provide novel insights that add depth to our understanding of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the upper airway and establish a proteomic signature for this viral infection.

Quantitative Tyrosine Phosphoproteome Profiling of AXL Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Signaling Network.

Overexpression and amplification of AXL receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) has been found in several hematologic and solid malignancies. Activation of AXL can enhance tumor-promoting processes such as cancer cell proliferation, migration, invasion and survival. Despite the important role of AXL in cancer development, a deep and quantitative mapping of its temporal dynamic signaling transduction has not yet been reported. Here, we used a TMT labeling-based quantitative proteomics approach to characterize the temporal dynamics of the phosphotyrosine proteome induced by AXL activation. We identified >1100 phosphotyrosine sites and observed a widespread upregulation of tyrosine phosphorylation induced by GAS6 stimulation. We also detected several tyrosine sites whose phosphorylation levels were reduced upon AXL activation. Gene set enrichment-based pathway analysis indicated the activation of several cancer-promoting and cell migration/invasion-related signaling pathways, including RAS, EGFR, focal adhesion, VEGFR and cytoskeletal rearrangement pathways. We also observed a rapid induction of phosphorylation of protein tyrosine phosphatases, including PTPN11 and PTPRA, upon GAS6 stimulation. The novel molecules downstream of AXL identified in this study along with the detailed global quantitative map elucidating the temporal dynamics of AXL activation should not only help understand the oncogenic role of AXL, but also aid in developing therapeutic options to effectively target AXL.

DIA-Based Proteome Profiling of Nasopharyngeal Swabs from COVID-19 Patients.

Since the recent outbreak of COVID-19, there have been intense efforts to understand viral pathogenesis and host immune response to combat SARS-CoV-2. It has become evident that different host alterations can be identified in SARS-CoV-2 infection based on whether infected cells, animal models or clinical samples are studied. Although nasopharyngeal swabs are routinely collected for SARS-CoV-2 detection by RT-PCR testing, host alterations in the nasopharynx at the proteomic level have not been systematically investigated. Thus, we sought to characterize the host response through global proteome profiling of nasopharyngeal swab specimens. A mass spectrometer combining trapped ion mobility spectrometry (TIMS) and high-resolution QTOF mass spectrometer with parallel accumulation-serial fragmentation (PASEF) was deployed for unbiased proteome profiling. First, deep proteome profiling of pooled nasopharyngeal swab samples was performed in the PASEF enabled DDA mode, which identified 7723 proteins that were then used to generate a spectral library. This approach provided peptide level evidence of five missing proteins for which MS/MS spectrum and mobilograms were validated with synthetic peptides. Subsequently, quantitative proteomic profiling was carried out for 90 individual nasopharyngeal swab samples (45 positive and 45 negative) in DIA combined with PASEF, termed as diaPASEF mode, which resulted in a total of 5023 protein identifications. Of these, 577 proteins were found to be upregulated in SARS-CoV-2 positive samples. Functional analysis of these upregulated proteins revealed alterations in several biological processes including innate immune response, viral protein assembly, and exocytosis. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to deploy diaPASEF for quantitative proteomic profiling of clinical samples and shows the feasibility of adopting such an approach to understand mechanisms and pathways altered in diseases.

Tyrosine Phosphoproteomics of Patient-Derived Xenografts Reveals Ephrin Type-B Receptor 4 Tyrosine Kinase as a Therapeutic Target in Pancreatic Cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a recalcitrant tumor with minimal response to conventional chemotherapeutic approaches. Oncogenic signaling by activated tyrosine kinases has been implicated in cancers resulting in activation of diverse effector signaling pathways. Thus, the discovery of aberrantly activated tyrosine kinases is of great interest in developing novel therapeutic strategies in the treatment and management of pancreatic cancer. Patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDXs) in mice serve as potentially valuable preclinical models as they maintain the histological and molecular heterogeneity of the original human tumor. Here, we employed high-resolution mass spectrometry combined with immunoaffinity purification using anti-phosphotyrosine antibodies to profile tyrosine phosphoproteome across 13 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma PDX models. This analysis resulted in the identification of 1199 tyrosine-phosphorylated sites mapping to 704 proteins. The mass spectrometric analysis revealed widespread and heterogeneous activation of both receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinases. Preclinical studies confirmed ephrin type-B receptor 4 (EphB4) as a potential therapeutic target based on the efficacy of human serum albumin-conjugated soluble EphB4 in mice bearing orthotopic xenografts. Immunohistochemistry-based validation using tissue microarrays from 346 patients with PDAC showed significant expression of EphB4 in >70% of patients. In summary, we present a comprehensive landscape of tyrosine phosphoproteome with EphB4 as a promising therapeutic target in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

A mass spectrometry-based targeted assay for detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen from clinical specimens.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has overwhelmed health systems worldwide and highlighted limitations of diagnostic testing. Several types of diagnostic tests including RT-PCR-based assays and antigen detection by lateral flow assays, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, have been developed and deployed in a short time. METHODS: Here, we describe an immunoaffinity purification approach followed a by high resolution mass spectrometry-based targeted qualitative assay capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2 viral antigen from nasopharyngeal swab samples. Based on our discovery experiments using purified virus, recombinant viral protein and nasopharyngeal swab samples from COVID-19 positive patients, nucleocapsid protein was selected as a target antigen. We then developed an automated antibody capture-based workflow coupled to targeted high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) - parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) assay on an Orbitrap Exploris 480 mass spectrometer. An ensemble machine learning-based model for determining COVID-19 positive samples was developed using fragment ion intensities from the PRM data. FINDINGS: The optimized targeted assay, which was used to analyze 88 positive and 88 negative nasopharyngeal swab samples for validation, resulted in 98% (95% CI = 0.922-0.997) (86/88) sensitivity and 100% (95% CI = 0.958-1.000) (88/88) specificity using RT-PCR-based molecular testing as the reference method. INTERPRETATION: Our results demonstrate that direct detection of infectious agents from clinical samples by tandem mass spectrometry-based assays have potential to be deployed as diagnostic assays in clinical laboratories, which has hitherto been limited to analysis of pure microbial cultures. FUNDING: This study was supported by DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Margdarshi Fellowship grant IA/M/15/1/502023 awarded to AP and the generosity of Eric and Wendy Schmidt.

PASS-DIA: A Data-Independent Acquisition Approach for Discovery Studies.

A data-independent acquisition (DIA) approach is being increasingly adopted as a promising strategy for identification and quantitation of proteomes. As most DIA data sets are acquired with wide isolation windows, highly complex MS/MS spectra are generated, which negatively impacts obtaining peptide information through classical protein database searches. Therefore, the analysis of DIA data mainly relies on the evidence of the existence of peptides from prebuilt spectral libraries. Consequently, one major weakness of this method is that it does not account for peptides that are not included in the spectral library, precluding the use of DIA for discovery studies. Here, we present a strategy termed Precursor ion And Small Slice-DIA (PASS-DIA) in which MS/MS spectra are acquired with small isolation windows (slices) and MS/MS spectra are interpreted with accurately determined precursor ion masses. This method enables the direct application of conventional spectrum-centric analysis pipelines for peptide identification and precursor ion-based quantitation. The performance of PASS-DIA was observed to be superior to both data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and conventional DIA experiments with 69 and 48% additional protein identifications, respectively. Application of PASS-DIA for the analysis of post-translationally modified peptides again highlighted its superior performance in characterizing phosphopeptides (77% more), N-terminal acetylated peptides (56% more), and N-glycopeptides (83% more) as compared to DDA alone. Finally, the use of PASS-DIA to characterize a rare proteome of human fallopian tube organoids enabled 34% additional protein identifications than DDA alone and revealed biologically relevant pathways including low abundance proteins. Overall, PASS-DIA is a novel DIA approach for use as a discovery tool that outperforms both conventional DDA and DIA experiments to provide additional protein information. We believe that the PASS-DIA method is an important strategy for discovery-type studies when deeper proteome characterization is required.