Joining Two Perspectives of the Proteome with the Trypsin+HTA Protease Workflow

Abstract

Proteolysis can be completed in a single-step, rapid (5-30 minutes) reaction using hyperthermoacidic archaeal (HTA) proteases. Protocol simplicity and stability of HTA proteases in ambient storage conditions removes many logistical barriers to widespread deployment of proteomic analysis. HTA protease cleavage selectivity is complex but quantitatively reproducible and generates peptides that negligibly overlap with trypsin. Tryptic and HTA protease peptides emphasize different proteins and provide complementary coverage of amino acid sequence and post-translational modification (PTM) sites. Digestion of a sample's separate aliquot with HTA protease is a minor addition to trypsin-based workflows, but LC-MS analysis of both sets of peptides is not practical for large cohorts. This manuscript evaluates the identifications and reproducibility of LC-MS analysis of tryptic and HTA protease peptide mixtures. Adding HTA protease peptides to 20% increased total protein identifications by 24% on average in neat plasma and identified 216 additional biologically interesting modifications compared to conventional trypsin-only bottom-up proteomic analysis. This approach is reproducible and does not increase sample preparation or analysis time. Peptides from each protease present independent opportunities to quantify overlapping proteins and a quantification model was developed in which, for each protein, the most complete protease data is selected for primary quantitation and data from the second protease is used to infer missing values. This cross-protease inference is more accurate than minimum, mean, or nearest neighbor imputations. Finally, biomarkers discovered through HTA protease peptides are amenable to rapid HTA protease only proteomic workflows thus streamlining translation from discovery to fieldable applications.