Quantitative Chemoproteomic Profiling with Data-Independent Acquisition-Based Mass Spectrometry

Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) has emerged as a powerful and versatile tool to enable annotation of protein functions and discovery of targets of bioactive ligands in complex biological systems. It utilizes chemical probes to covalently label functional sites in proteins so that they can be enriched for mass spectrometry (MS)-based quantitative proteomics analysis. However, the semistochastic nature of data-dependent acquisition and high cost associated with isotopically encoded quantification reagents compromise the power of ABPP in multidimensional analysis and high-throughput screening, when a large number of samples need to be quantified in parallel. Here, we combine the data-independent acquisition (DIA) MS with ABPP to develop an efficient label-free quantitative chemical proteomic method, DIA-ABPP, with good reproducibility and high accuracy for high-throughput quantification. We demonstrated the power of DIA-ABPP for comprehensive profiling of functional cysteineome in three distinct applications, including dose-dependent quantification of cysteines' sensitivity toward a reactive metabolite, screening of ligandable cysteines with a covalent fragment library, and profiling of cysteinome fluctuation in circadian clock cycles. DIA-ABPP will open new opportunities for indepth and multidimensional profiling of functional proteomes and interactions with bioactive small molecules in complex biological systems.

Automated summary

Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) is a powerful tool for annotating protein functions and discovering targets of bioactive ligands. In this study, we combined data-independent acquisition (DIA) MS with ABPP to develop a label-free quantitative chemical proteomic method called DIA-ABPP. With good reproducibility and high accuracy, DIA-ABPP allows for high-throughput quantification, enabling comprehensive profiling of functional proteomes and interactions with bioactive small molecules.