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1 Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg, Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
2 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark
Reprint requests to: Matthias P. Mayer, Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg, Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 282, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany; e-mail: M.Mayer{at}zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de; fax: 49 6221 54 5894.
| Abstract |
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32 free in solution. Our results indicate that the C-terminal
4 domain of
32, which is responsible for the recognition of the 35 region of heat shock promoters, contains more extensive secondary structure than expected when compared with the structure of the homologous
-factor
A in complex with the RNA-polymerase. This setup should be very useful for a more accurate analysis of structural motions in proteins in the subsecond to second time scale relevant to allostery and enzyme function. Keywords: quenched flow; amide hydrogen exchange; protein conformation; protein folding; mass spectrometry
Abbreviations: ESI, electrospray ionization HPLC, high-pressure liquid chromatography HX, amide hydrogen-(1H/2H)-exchange kch, intrinsic chemical exchange rate kobs, observed exchange rate MS, mass spectrometry
Article published online ahead of print. Article and publication date are at http://www.proteinscience.org/cgi/doi/10.1110/ps.041098305.
| Introduction |
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The conformational properties of proteins in their native state are typically investigated by HX by incubating the proteins in deuterated buffer at neutral pH for different time intervals with subsequent acidification, desalting, and MS analysis (Engen and Smith 2001). Since the samples are handled manually, exchange times < 10 sec are from a practical point of view very difficult to obtain accurately. Conformational changes and transient structural fluctuations occurring on this time scale can therefore not be resolved. Protein folding studies are typically carried out in a quenched-flow instrument with pulse-labeling at high pH (
9.5) for short time intervals (typically 10 msec) and automated quenching of the reaction. The subsequent steps, i.e., peptic digestion, desalting, and MS analysis, are performed off-line (Konermann and Simmons 2003). Proteins in a denaturing buffer are diluted into a refolding buffer and allowed to refold for various periods of time whereafter a short pulse at high pH labels regions still unfolded. The off-line desalting and proteolytic digestion required in this method make sample handling more labor intensive and limit reproducibility. Quenched-flow pulse-labeling with on-line electrospray ionization (ESI) MS analysis, which is so far only used to investigate full-length proteins, was hampered by the salt sensitivity of the ESI-MS analysis, and therefore restricted to proteins dissolved in buffers with low ionic strength (i.e., at nonphysiological conditions) and without metal ions essential for many nucleotide binding proteins.
We report here a quenched-flow rapid-desalting MS setup for on-line HX with exchange times of 0.130 sec, on-line proteolytic digestion, desalting and ESI-MS analysis.
| Results and Discussion |
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Performance of the quenched-flow system
To test our setup we analyzed deuteron incorporation into native apo-myoglobin at decreasing time intervals and compared the results with samples of manually performed HX reactions. Between 30 sec and 5 sec, both sample-handling procedures yielded identical results (Table 1
). Below 5 sec, reproducible manual sample handling was very difficult, and below 2 sec impossible; however, gradual deuterium incorporation was still observed with the quenched-flow setup revealing the fluctuations within the protein in the millisecond-to-second time scale.
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Figure 2
shows the time course of deuteron incorporation into apo-myoglobin at pH 7.6 (left panels) and 8.5 (right panels) in comparison with the intrinsic chemical amide hydrogen exchange (dashed lines) as calculated for each amide hydrogen of the entire protein using the HXPep program (courtesy Z. Zhang) (Bai et al. 1993). A triple exponential rate equation was fitted to the measured and calculated data. The shortest time constant for the measured deuteron incorporation could not be fitted and was set to the value determined for the intrinsic chemical exchange time constant.
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At pH 8.5, the intrinsic chemical exchange exceeds 98% already after 250 msec; any measured slower exchange therefore indicates protection by structural elements. As indicated by the fitting parameter, 47 deuterons were incorporated with a time constant < 0.1 sec, 28 amide hydrogens exchanged with a time constant of 0.8 sec and additional 75 protons with a time constant of ~70 sec. The total number of exchanging amide hydrogens at pH 8.5 as calculated from the fitting parameters was 150, which is very similar to the total number of exchangeable amide hydrogens in apo-myoglobin. At pH 8.5, deuteron incorporation was therefore faster and more extensive than at pH 7.6, indicating pH-dependent structural fluctuations in apo-myoglobin. The increased rate of deuteron incorporation at higher pH is caused by two effects. First, the accelerated intrinsic chemical exchange rate at higher pH increases the probability of exchange in any transient structural opening event. Second, the flexibility of apo-myoglobin increases at higher pH, consistent with published data (Haouz et al. 1998).
Taken together, these data demonstrate that our quenched-flow setup can accurately measure the deuterium incorporation into full-length proteins within the time interval limited by kch and the manual pipetting speed.
Detection of protected amides in the three-helix bundle of
32
To test the performance of our quenched-flow setup including the on-line peptic digestion we analyzed the HX of the E. coli heat-shock transcription factor
32 for which only a homology model onto the structure of Thermus thermophilus
A bound to RNA polymerase exists. In our recent study on temperature-dependent conformational changes of
32 we found good overall consistency between the structural model of
32 and HX data, except in the C terminus, where the structural model shows
-helices while the HX data did not show any protection (Rist et al. 2003). This inconsistency could be explained either by the incorrectness of the model or by a highly dynamic nature of the
-helices in this region with opening and closing kinetics in the second time range. The shortest exchange times used in the reported experiments were 12 sec, and therefore a dynamic structure of the
-helices would have remained undetected. Since this region is involved in the recognition of the 35 region of heat-shock promoters, its structural properties are important for the biological function of
32. We were therefore interested in analyzing HX in
32 in the 0.1-sec to 30-sec time scale.
Almost complete digestion of
32 was achieved with a 16 µL column packed with immobilized pepsin (< 5% of the protein remained undigested). The small volume results in a very short residence time for the sample molecules in the pepsin column (~ 3.1 sec), and any deuterium loss or gain will be negligible relative to the deuterium loss during the chromatographic separation with the analytical column (retention times were between 8 and 12 min). Deuterium loss during desalting and analytical chromatography was between 13% and 18%. Supplementary Figure 2
shows some representative mass spectra of peptic fragments of
32.
When HX of
32 was analyzed in our setup and the measured deuteron incorporation compared with the kch of the individual peptide segments we found that a total of at least 30 amide protons in the C-terminal region are still protected after 1 sec and at least 25 after 5 sec. Figure 3
shows the kinetics of amide hydrogen exchange of individual peptide segments under native state conditions in comparison with the intrinsic chemical exchange kinetics of corresponding unstructured peptides. While in some peptide segments (amino acids 209244,1 240253, 255263, 259272, and 258294) (Figs. 3
and 4
, upper panel; data not shown) significant protection was observed over a time interval of 15 sec, other peptide segments (amino acids 184199 and 201208) exchanged almost all amide protons for deuterons within 0.5 sec. The determined protection factors of the intermediately exchanging amide hydrogens were 10.0 14.4, 33.9, 9.3, and 35.9 for the peptides 209244, 240253, 255263, 259272, and 258294, respectively. Repetitive determination of the m/z values for the different peptides at the individual time points of HX was within 0.1 m/z units demonstrating the high reproducibility.
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Using our model we determined the number of possible hydrogen bonds involving backbone amides by measuring the distances between the amide nitrogens and corresponding carbonyl oxygens using the insight II program (Accelrys). The lower panel of Figure 4
gives the number of potential hydrogen bonds (nitrogenoxygen distance < 3.0 Å and < 3.2 Å, respectively) and compares these with the number of protected amide hydrogens after different exchange times (Fig. 4
, upper panel). In most peptides originating from the C-terminal part of
32 we observed a higher degree of protection of amide hydrogens than expected from the structural model using 3 Å or 3.2 Å as cutoff criterion for a stable hydrogen bond, indicating more extensive secondary structure. In one peptide the opposite was observed; less amide hydrogens were protected than expected from the model. This discrepancy could be due to the fact that
32 was modeled onto the RNA polymerase bound from of
A. Free in solution this region may exhibit more extensive secondary structure. Our quenched-flow setup therefore allowed a close test of the structural model of
32 and it will be interesting to analyze
32 in complex with RNA polymerase and DNA.
| Conclusion |
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This setup should find a wide range of applications. It is very suitable for native state HX allowing the accurate determination of protection factors (kch/kobs) as small as 10, corresponding to structural fluctuations with a free energy barrier of around 6 kJ/mol (Bai et al. 1995a,b; Clarke and Itzhaki 1998). This setup would also allow the detection of induced short-term conformational changes due to ligand binding according to an induced fit mechanism or to enzyme catalysis. For this purpose the ligand/substrate could be present in the D2O buffer and encounter the enzyme at the same moment as D2O. Similarly, ligand binding sites or dimer interfaces of interaction partners with dissociation rates as high as 1 sec1 could be mapped (HD footprinting). Even protein folding studies could be performed with this quenched-flow setup to analyze early folding processes. Acid denatured proteins could be mixed with D2O buffer that at the same time initiate refolding and HX. Since the initial hydrophobic collapse occurs in the microsecond time scale, the amide protons that are protected in the "molten globule" state should not exchange to any significant degree because the collapse is much faster than kch. However, the subsequent folding processes were amenable for analysis without the problem that is imposed by the stabilization through the native state. The detection and characterization of off-path intermediates that are lost in the generally used pulse-labeling studies should be possible. The ability of the MS analysis to detect coexisting conformations at the same time without averaging is the prerequisite for such a study. Even later stages of the protein folding could be analyzed by small modifications of our setup. The use of an additional pump and a second delay line and mixing tee would expand the system to allow the separation of the initiation of re-folding from the start of the HX reaction.
| Materials and methods |
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32 was prepared as described previously (Tomoyasu et al. 2001). D2O (99.9%) was from Cambridge Isotope Laboratories, Poroszyme Immobilized Pepsin and Poros R1 from Applied Biosystems, myoglobin and other chemicals from Sigma.
On-line quenched-flow amide hydrogen exchange setup
The setup employed to measure HX in a millisecond time scale consisted of five HPLC pumps (one Agilent 1100 Series Capillary pump [A], one Agilent 1100 Series Binary pump [B], one Rheos 2000 Micro pump [1], and two Shimadzu LC-10ADVP pumps [2 and 3]), a Rheodyne injection valve (Model 8125) with a 5-µL stainless steel sample loop, and two Valco 2-position/10-port valves with microelectric actuators (Model C2-1000EP6). A schematic drawing of the setup is shown in Figure 1
. Protein samples (100200 pmol in < 5 µL) were injected and pushed by pump 1 with a flow rate of 6 µL/min toward a mixing tee, which was also connected with pump 2 delivering D2O-buffer (25 mM HEPES, pD 7.6, 50 mM KCl, and 5 mM MgCl2) with a flow rate of 150 µL/min. Hence, the injected samples were diluted 1:25 in D2O uffer and pushed through the delay line where amide hydrogen exchange occurred. The exchange time was adjusted by the volume of the delay line (e.g., 2.6 µL
1 sec). The exchange reaction was quenched in a second mixing tee by 1:1 dilution of the sample with quench buffer (0.5 M KH2PO4/H3PO4, pH 2.2) delivered by pump 3 with a flow rate of 150 µL/min. The quenched sample was then pushed through a 16-µL pepsin column (1 mm ID x 20 mm) and immediately trapped on a reversed-phase column (0.8 mm ID x 3 mm, Poros 10 R1).
For the desalting of trapped peptic peptides, the left two-position/10-port valve was switched, and 0.05% TFA was delivered by pump A (250 µL/min). After 1 min, the right two-position/10-port valve was switched to elute the desalted peptic peptides from the trap column over a 0.75 mm ID x 6 cm analytical reversed-phase column packed with Zorbax 300SB-C8 (3.5-µm particles) directly into the electrospray source. The solvent for elution was delivered by pump B with a flow rate of 17.5 µL/min using the following short gradient: buffer A (0.05% TFA) to buffer B (90% ACN, 0.05% TFA), having the profile: %B: 15
55 (0
10 min), %B: 55
100 (10
11 min), %B: 100
15 (11
12 min). The last eluted peptide was detected 12 min after sample injection. All lines delivering quench buffer or quenched sample were immersed in an ice bath to minimize back-exchange. For kinetic measurements of the full-length proteins the pepsin column was omitted.
Off-line amide hydrogen exchange experiments
Amide hydrogen exchange was initiated by a 25-fold dilution of 100 pmol apo-myoglobin into D2O containing 25 mM HEPES, pD 7.6, 50 mM KCl, and 5 mM MgCl2 at room temperature. After different elapsed times (from 1 to 30 sec), the exchange reaction was quenched by decreasing the temperature to 0°C and the pH to 2.2 with 500 mM phosphate buffer. Quenched samples were loaded via the injection valve and pushed through the pepsin column by pump A. Hereafter, the experimental setup was as described above.
Mass spectrometry and data treatment
Electrospray ionization mass spectra were acquired on a quadrupole time-of-flight instrument (QSTAR Pulsar, ABI SCIEX). Molecular masses of the proteins were calculated from the ESI mass spectra using the Bayesian Reconstruct tool of the BioAnalyst software (ABI SCIEX). For full-length proteins, spectra were externally calibrated using apo-myoglobin as standard.
Peptic peptides of
32 were identified on the basis of their MS/MS spectra. The deuterium content of the peptides was calculated by using the average mass difference between the isotopic envelopes of deuterated and undeuterated peptides. The average masses were determined with the MagTran software (Zhang and Marshall 1998).
| Footnotes |
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3 Present address: Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG, Birk-endorfer Str. 65, 88397 Biberach an der Riss, Germany. ![]()
1 All numbers of peptides are based on the observable exchange and therefore exclude the N-terminal amino acid, which does not have a backbone amide. ![]()
| Acknowledgments |
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