Submitted on July 26, 2007
Revised on November 6, 2007
Accepted on November 19, 2007
Stoichiometry and absolute quantification of proteins with mass spectrometry using fluorescent and isotope labeled concatenated peptide standards
Dhaval Nanavati, Marjan Gucek, Jacqueline L.S. Milne, Sriram Subramaniam, and Sanford P. Markey
National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1262
Corresponding Author: markeys{at}mail.nih.gov
We have explored a general approach for the determination of absolute amounts and the relative stoichiometry of proteins in a mixture using fluorescence and mass spectrometry. We engineered a gene to express green fluorescent protein (GFP) with a synthetic fusion protein (GAB-GFP) in E. coli to function as a spectroscopic standard for the quantification of an analogous stable isotope labeled, non-fluorescent fusion protein (GAB*), and for the quantification and stoichiometric analysis of purified transducin, a heterotrimeric G-protein complex. Both GAB-GFP and GAB* contain concatenated sequences of specific proteotypic peptides that derive from the a, ß and protein subunits of transducin and that are each flanked by spacer regions that maintain the native proteolytic properties for these peptide fragments. Spectroscopic quantification of GAB-GFP provided a molar scale for mass spectrometric ratios from tryptic peptides of GAB*, and defined molar responses for mass spectrometric signal intensities from a purified transducin complex. The stoichiometry of transducin subunits a, ß and was measured to be 1:1.1:1.15 over a 5-fold range of labeled internal standard with an RSD of 9%. Fusing a unique genetically coded spectroscopic signal element with concatenated proteotypic peptides provides a powerful method to accurately quantify and determine the relative stoichiometry of multiple proteins present in complexes or mixtures that cannot be readily assessed using classical gravimetric, enzymatic or antibody-based technologies.