A chemical method for genome- and proteome-wide enrichment and O-GlcNAcylation profiling of chromatin-associated proteins

O-Linked beta-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc), a versatile posttranslational modification (PTM), is found on many chromatin-associated proteins (CAPs), such as transcription factors and their cofactors (TFCs). O-GlcNAc turnover influences the dynamic interactions of CAPs with chromatin and thereby regulates gene expression. Therefore, both global profiling of O-GlcNAc chromatin-associated proteins (OCAPs) and genome-wide mapping of their DNA binding sites are invaluable for understanding the functions of OCAPs and the regulatory machinery of O-GlcNAcylation on gene transcription. However, it is difficult to conduct genome-and proteome-wide OCAP studies using the widely adopted chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) method due to the lack of highly OGlcNAc-specific panantibodies. Therefore, we developed a chemical enrichment method (AFT-OCAP) for simultaneously profiling OCAPs and mapping their binding DNA via mass spectrometry (MS) analysis and DNA sequencing. In our method, we developed an alkynyl-functionalized trimethylpiperidine (AFT) reagent to perform highly efficient chemical derivatizations of azide-labeled OCAP-DNA complexes. The reversible affinity between the immobilized anti-trimethylpiperidine antibody resin and AFT reagent leads to specific enrichment and efficient elution of the OCAP-DNA complexes for both MS identification and sequencing. Deep coverage of OCAPs was achieved from HeLa cells, including 1951 O-GlcNAc peptides from 1136 O-GlcNAc chromatin associated transcription factors and cofactors (TFCs) using HCD fragmentation and 669 O-GlcNAc sites using EThcD fragmentation. In addition, the distributions of O-GlcNAcylation across the genome and the dynamic interactions of OCAPs upon O-GlcNAc regulation were obtained.

Automated summary

The study developed a novel chemical enrichment method (AFT-OCAP) for simultaneous analysis of O-GlcNAc chromatin-associated proteins (OCAPs) and mapping their binding DNA, providing valuable tools for understanding the functions of OCAPs and the regulatory machinery of O-GlcNAcylation on gene transcription.