Enrichment approaches for glycoproteomics have been reviewed recently (Wuhrer et al.,
2007a; Xin et al.,
2008) and a few will be summarized here. Immobilized lectin may be used to enrich glycoproteins or glycopeptides (Cummings,
1994; Cummings and Kornfeld,
1982; Hirabayashi,
2008) for subsequent MS analysis (Madera et al.,
2005; Patwa et al.,
2006; Qiu and Regnier,
2005; Yang et al.,
2005). Glycopeptides may also be isolated by hydrophilic interaction solid phase extraction (Wada et al.,
2004) or chromatography (Wuhrer et al.,
2005b) and graphitized carbon solid phase extraction (Larsen et al.,
2005). They may be enriched based their high molecular weight using size exclusion chromatography (Alvarez-Manilla et al.,
2006) or captured by binding to immobilized boronic acid derivatives (Sparbier et al.,
2005).
The simplest approach to analysis of the enriched glycoproteins or glycopeptides is to deglycosylate and to do proteomic identification of the sites of occupancy (Qiu and Regnier,
2005; Xiong et al.,
2003). Enzymatic release of
N-glycans converts glycosylated Asn residues to Asp. The resultant mass difference can be used to determine sites of
N-glycosylation, provided that intrinsic rates of Asn deamidation are taken into account. Release of
N-glycans in H
218O distinguishes the site of occupancy from an Asp produced by deamidation and has been used in glycoproteomics work flows (Kaji et al.,
2003). Care must be taken to avoid spurious incorporation of
18O into peptide C-termini through residual trypsin activity (Angel et al.,
2007). A multiple reaction monitoring method has been developed to quantify
18O-labeled peptides from selected serum glycoproteins to assess the correlation of
N-linked site occupancy with severity of congenital disorders of glycosylation (Hulsmeier et al.,
2007).
Isotope-coded glycosylation-specific tagging (IGOT) is based on the incorporation
18O at the site of
N-glycosylation in a proteomics workflow (Kaji et al.,
2003; Kaji et al.,
2007). Glycoproteins are enriched from a complex mixture using lectin affinity chromatography. The glycoproteins are digested with trypsin and the resultant glycopeptides enriched by repeating the lectin affinity step. The glycopeptides are then digested with PNGase F in the presence of H
218O, labeling the sites of
N-glycosylation and analyzed using a two-dimensional LC/MS/MS proteomics workflow. This method has been applied to analysis of
N-glycans in the
C. elegans nematode.
Another approach entails oxidation of glycoprotein using periodate. This reaction converts
cis-diols on carbohydrates to aldehydes. The glycoproteins containing oxidized carbohydrates are then coupled to a solid support using hydrazide chemistry (Tian et al.,
2007; Zhang et al.,
2003). Nonglycosylated proteins are washed away. The bound proteins are then digested with trypsin and analyzed using MS-based proteomics to identify the glycoprotein. This approach has been used to capture glycoproteins from serum and showed increased efficiency of glycoprotein identification compared with a proteomics workflow that did not use an enrichment step. This method does not identify directly the site of glycosylation.
Several groups have published workflows for serum glycoproteomics based on use of lectins for affinity capture of glycoproteins or glycopeptides (Geng et al.,
2001). Serial lectin affinity chromatography has been used to affinity enrich glycopeptides (Geng et al.,
2001) from tryptic digests of serum (Qiu and Regnier,
2005). The bound and unbound fractions are differentially stable isotope labeled using an amine-specific tag (Chakraborty and Regnier,
2002). The fractions are then mixed, deglycosylated, and analyzed using MS-based proteomics. The results show the class of
N-glycan based on the known selectivity of the lectin(s) used.
Multiple lectin affinity chromatography entails use of a single column with three lectins (ConA, WGA, and jacalin) to achieve binding for a broad range of glycan structures (Wang et al.,
2006; Yang et al.,
2005). The affinity enriched glycoproteins are digested with trypsin and analyzed using MS-based proteomics. This approach has been used in conjunction with abundant protein depletion for analysis of glycoprotein biomarkers in serum (Plavina et al.,
2007). Silica-based lectin microcolumns have been developed that improved the binding capacity, trapping reproducibility, and substrate selectivity over agarose-based materials (Madera et al.,
2005). These microcolumns have been used in a workflow in which enriched glycoproteins are fractionated using high-temperature reversed-phase HPLC, followed by trypsinization and LC/MS analysis of the resultant peptides (Madera et al.,
2006). The results compare the distribution of glycoproteins identified from serum using different lectins.
To gain information on the glycan structures modifying individual amino acid residues, it is necessary to analyze the glycopeptide directly. One approach is to digest the glycoprotein with a nonspecific protease, generating glycopeptides bound to very small peptides (An et al.,
2003). A computer program has been developed to determine the amino acid site of occupancy and the glycosylation microheterogeneity at each site (An et al.,
2006). Another approach combines MS and tandem MS data obtained on glycoprotein tryptic digests to identify sites of glycan occupancy and microheterogeneity (Goldberg et al.,
2007). This approach leverages careful recalibration of Q-TOF data using known peptides to maximize mass accuracy and certainty of assignment.