title: Single amino acid sequence polymorphisms in rat cardiac troponin revealed by top-down tandem mass spectrometry.
abstract: Heterotrimeric cardiac troponin (cTn) is a critical component of the thin filament regulatory complex in cardiac muscle. Two of the three subunits, cTnI and cTnT, are subject to post-translational modifications such as proteolysis and phosphorylation, but linking modification patterns to function remains a major challenge. To obtain a global view of the biochemical state of cTn in native tissue, we performed high resolution top-down mass spectrometry of cTn heterotrimers from healthy adult rat hearts. cTn heterotrimers were affinity purified, desalted and then directly subjected to mass spectrometry using a 7 Tesla Thermo LTQ-FT-ICR instrument equipped with an ESI source. Molecular ions for N-terminally processed and acetylated cTnI and cTnT were readily detected as were other post-translationally modified forms of these proteins. cTnI was phosphorylated with a distribution of un-, mono- and bisphosphorylated forms of 41 +/- 3%, 46 +/- 1%, 13 +/- 3%, respectively. cTnT was predominantly monophosphorylated and partially proteolyzed at the Glu(29)-Pro(30) peptide bond. Also observed in high resolution spectra were 'shadow' peaks of similar intensity to 'parent' peaks exhibiting masses of cTnI+16 Da and cTnT+128 Da, subsequently shown by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) to be single amino acid polymorphisms. Intact and protease-digested cTn subunits were fragmented by electron capture dissociation or collision activated dissociation to localize an Ala/Ser polymorphism at residue 7 of cTnI. Similar analysis of cTnT localized an additional Gln within a three residue alternative splice site beginning at residue 192. Besides being able to provide unique insights into the global state of post-translational modification of cTn subunits, high resolution top-down mass spectrometry readily revealed naturally occurring single amino acid sequence variants including a genetic polymorphism at residue 7 in cTnI, and an alternative splice isoform that affects a putative hinge region around residue 192 of cTnT, all of which co-exist within a single rat heart.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Raquel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sancho Solis
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.forename: Jeffery W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Walker
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009206:Myocardium / Q000378:metabolism*; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D051381:Rats; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D014336:Troponin / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D014336:Troponin