GlycopeptideGraphMS: Improved Glycopeptide Detection and Identification by Exploiting Graph Theoretical Patterns in Mass and Retention Time

Anal Chem. 2019 Jun 4;91(11):7236-7244. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b00594. Epub 2019 May 23.

Abstract

The leading proteomic method for identifying N-glycosylated peptides is liquid chromatography coupled with tandem fragmentation mass spectrometry (LCMS/MS) followed by spectral matching of MS/MS fragment masses to a database of possible glycan and peptide combinations. Such database-dependent approaches come with challenges such as needing high-quality informative MS/MS spectra, ignoring unexpected glycan or peptide sequences, and making incorrect assignments because some glycan combinations are equivalent in mass to amino acids. To address these challenges, we present GlycopeptideGraphMS, a graph theoretical bioinformatic approach complementary to the database-dependent method. Using the AXL receptor tyrosine kinase (AXL) as a model glycoprotein with multiple N-glycosylation sites, we show that those LCMS features that could be grouped into graph networks on the basis of glycan mass and retention time differences were actually N-glycopeptides with the same peptide backbone but different N-glycan compositions. Conversely, unglycosylated peptides did not exhibit this grouping behavior. Furthermore, MS/MS sequencing of the glycan and peptide composition of just one N-glycopeptide in the graph was sufficient to identify the rest of the N-glycopeptides in the graph. By validating the identifications with exoglycosidase cocktails and MS/MS fragmentation, we determined the experimental false discovery rate of identifications to be 2.21%. GlycopeptideGraphMS detected more than 500 unique N-glycopeptides from AXL, triple the number found by a database search with Byonic software, and detected incorrect assignments due to a nonspecific protease cleavage. This method overcomes some limitations of the database approach and is a step closer to comprehensive automated glycoproteomics.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Axl Receptor Tyrosine Kinase
  • Chromatography, Liquid
  • Databases, Protein
  • Humans
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins / analysis*
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins / metabolism
  • Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases / analysis*
  • Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases / metabolism
  • Software*
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry
  • Time Factors

Substances

  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins
  • Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases
  • Axl Receptor Tyrosine Kinase
  • AXL protein, human