Proteome-wide Analysis of Protein Carboxy Termini: C-Terminomics

Authors: Oliver Schilling, Olivier Barré, Pitter F. Huesgen, Christopher M. Overall. Lab of Christopher M. Overall, Centre for Blood Research (CBR), Department of Oral Biological & Medical Sciences

Published in Nature Methods 7, 508-511 (2010). doi:10.1038/nmeth.1467

ABSTRACT: Enrichment of protein carboxy-terminal peptides by negative selection. Chemical modification of free amino- and carboxy-groups before tryptic digest allows selective polymer-based removal of protein internal peptides. This new method provides access to protein carboxy-termini on a system-wide scale, enabling analysis of proteolytic processing and other modifications at protein carboxy-termini in health and disease.

We describe a method for the enrichment of protein carboxy terminal peptides. With this method, protein carboxy termini can be studied on a system-wide scale by mass-spectrometry. This allows us to analyze proteolytic processing events that we could not study before, e.g. carboxypeptidase activity, and may also help to identify yet unknown modifications at protein carboxy termini.