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Article
Comparison of Strong Cation Exchange and SDS-PAGE Fractionation for Analysis of Multiprotein Complexes
Journal of Proteome Research
  • Sudipto Das
  • Allen D. Bosley
  • Xiaoying Ye
  • King C. Chan
  • Isabel Chu
  • Jeffery E. Green
  • Haleem J. Issaq
  • Timothy D. Veenstra, Cedarville University
  • Thorkell Andresson
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-3-2010
DOI
10.1021/pr100843x
PubMed ID
20968308
PubMed Central® ID
PMC3707127
Abstract

Affinity purification of protein complexes followed by identification using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is a robust method to study the fundamental process of protein interaction. Although affinity isolation reduces the complexity of the sample, fractionation prior to LC-MS/MS analysis is still necessary to maximize protein coverage. In this study, we compared the protein coverage obtained via LC-MS/MS analysis of protein complexes prefractionated using two commonly employed methods, SDS-PAGE and strong cation exchange chromatography (SCX). The two complexes analyzed focused on the nuclear proteins Bmi-1 and GATA3 that were expressed within the cells at low and high levels, respectively. Prefractionation of the complexes at the peptide level using SCX consistently resulted in the identification of approximately 3-fold more proteins compared to separation at the protein level using SDS-PAGE. The increase in the number of identified proteins was especially pronounced for the Bmi-1 complex, where the target protein was expressed at a low level. The data show that prefractionation of affinity isolated protein complexes using SCX prior to LC-MS/MS analysis significantly increases the number of identified proteins and individual protein coverage, particularly for target proteins expressed at low levels.

Keywords
  • Cations,
  • cell line,
  • tumor,
  • chemical fractionation,
  • chromatography,
  • ion exchange,
  • liquid,
  • electrophoresis,
  • multiprotein complexes
Citation Information
Sudipto Das, Allen D. Bosley, Xiaoying Ye, King C. Chan, et al.. "Comparison of Strong Cation Exchange and SDS-PAGE Fractionation for Analysis of Multiprotein Complexes" Journal of Proteome Research Vol. 9 Iss. 12 (2010) p. 6696 - 6704 ISSN: 1535-3907
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/timothy-veenstra/87/