Capillary sieving electrophoresis/micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography for two-dimensional protein fingerprinting of single mammalian cells

Anal Chem. 2004 Jul 15;76(14):4044-9. doi: 10.1021/ac0498314.

Abstract

We have developed a two-dimensional capillary electrophoresis method for the study of protein expression in single mammalian cells. The first-dimension capillary contains an SDS-pullulan buffer system to perform capillary sieving electrophoresis, which separates proteins based on molecular weight. The second-dimension capillary contains an SDS buffer for micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography. After a 6-min-long preliminary separation, fractions from the first capillary are successively transferred to a second capillary, where they undergo further separation by MECC. Over 100 transfers and second-dimension separations are performed over an approximately 3.5-h-long period. We demonstrate this technology by generating protein fingerprints from single native MC3T3-E1 osteoprogenitor cells and MC3T3-E1 cells transfected with the human transcription regulator TWIST. We also present single-cell protein fingerprints from MCF-7 breast cancer cells before and following treatment to induce apoptosis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Breast Neoplasms / pathology
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Chromatography, Micellar Electrokinetic Capillary / methods*
  • Electrophoresis, Capillary / methods*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Mice
  • Molecular Weight
  • Osteoblasts / cytology
  • Osteoblasts / metabolism
  • Proteins / isolation & purification*
  • Proteins / metabolism
  • Transcription Factors / physiology
  • Tumor Cells, Cultured

Substances

  • Proteins
  • Transcription Factors