Quantitative mapping of protein-peptide affinity landscapes using spectrally encoded beads
Abstract
Transient, regulated binding of globular protein domains to Short Linear Motifs (SLiMs) in disordered regions of other proteins drives cellular signaling. Mapping the energy landscapes of these interactions is essential for deciphering and perturbing signaling networks but is challenging due to their weak affinities. We present a powerful technology (MRBLE-pep) that simultaneously quantifies protein binding to a library of peptides directly synthesized on beads containing unique spectral codes. Using MRBLE-pep, we systematically probe binding of human calcineurin (CN), a conserved protein phosphatase essential for the immune response and target of immunosuppressants, to the PxIxIT SLiM. We discover that flanking residues and post-translational modifications critically contribute to PxIxIT-CN affinity and identify CN-binding peptides based on multiple scaffolds with a wide range of affinities. The quantitative biophysical data provided by this approach will improve computational modeling efforts, elucidate a broad range of weak protein-SLiM interactions, and revolutionize our understanding of signaling networks.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. In addition, all data generated or analyzed during this study are available in an associated public OSF repository (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/FPVE2).
-
Quantitative mapping of protein-peptide affinity landscapes using spectrally encoded beadsOpen Science Framework, DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/FPVE2.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (DP2GM123641)
- Polly Morrell Fordyce
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM107132)
- Kurt S Thorn
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM119336)
- Martha S Cyert
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM117189)
- Tanja Kortemme
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM110089)
- Tanja Kortemme
Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
- Tanja Kortemme
Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
- Polly Morrell Fordyce
Sloan Foundation
- Polly Morrell Fordyce
Beckman Foundation
- Polly Morrell Fordyce
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2019, Nguyen et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 3,840
- views
-
- 568
- downloads
-
- 54
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Further reading
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
- Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have great potential to be used as alternatives to embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in regenerative medicine and disease modelling. In this study, we characterise the proteomes of multiple hiPSC and hESC lines derived from independent donors and find that while they express a near-identical set of proteins, they show consistent quantitative differences in the abundance of a subset of proteins. hiPSCs have increased total protein content, while maintaining a comparable cell cycle profile to hESCs, with increased abundance of cytoplasmic and mitochondrial proteins required to sustain high growth rates, including nutrient transporters and metabolic proteins. Prominent changes detected in proteins involved in mitochondrial metabolism correlated with enhanced mitochondrial potential, shown using high-resolution respirometry. hiPSCs also produced higher levels of secreted proteins, including growth factors and proteins involved in the inhibition of the immune system. The data indicate that reprogramming of fibroblasts to hiPSCs produces important differences in cytoplasmic and mitochondrial proteins compared to hESCs, with consequences affecting growth and metabolism. This study improves our understanding of the molecular differences between hiPSCs and hESCs, with implications for potential risks and benefits for their use in future disease modelling and therapeutic applications.
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Dynamic conformational and structural changes in proteins and protein complexes play a central and ubiquitous role in the regulation of protein function, yet it is very challenging to study these changes, especially for large protein complexes, under physiological conditions. Here, we introduce a novel isobaric crosslinker, Qlinker, for studying conformational and structural changes in proteins and protein complexes using quantitative crosslinking mass spectrometry. Qlinkers are small and simple, amine-reactive molecules with an optimal extended distance of ~10 Å, which use MS2 reporter ions for relative quantification of Qlinker-modified peptides derived from different samples. We synthesized the 2-plex Q2linker and showed that the Q2linker can provide quantitative crosslinking data that pinpoints key conformational and structural changes in biosensors, binary and ternary complexes composed of the general transcription factors TBP, TFIIA, and TFIIB, and RNA polymerase II complexes.