Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Synergistic Arg-C Ultra and Lys-C Digestion for Quantitative Proteomics
doi: 10.1101/2025.07.15.664461
Figure Lengend Snippet: (a) Schematic of Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra digestion workflow compatible with multiplexed and label-free proteomics. Bead-bound proteins are initially digested with Lys-C (40 ng/uL) in 20 mM EPPS (pH 8.5) at 37 °C overnight. TCEP was then added to 1 mM, followed by Arg-C Ultra at a 1:200 enzyme-to-protein ratio, with a second overnight digestion performed at 24 °C. Samples were either analyzed label-free or labeled with a unique TMTpro tag. After C18 cleanup, samples were analyzed with TMTproC or label-free DIA. Created with BioRender.com. (b) The Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra workflow is highly reproducible. To evaluate reproducibility, a single precipitated HeLa lysate was divided into 6 identical aliquots and digested independently. This was done with both the Lys-C/Trypsin protocol and the Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra protocol. For comparison, we premixed the six TMTpro tags and labeled a single pool of HeLa peptides (from Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra digest) with this mixture (grey). Samples were analyzed by TMTproC (unfractionated). This distribution represents the experimental limit of reproducibility by eliminating variability due to sample preparation, thus revealing only the variability that arises from the data acquisition process, such as limited ion statistics. A stringent signal-to-noise cutoff of 852 (2+) and 2206 (3+) was used. (c) Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra digestion minimizes missed cleavages at arginine residues while maintaining high efficiency at lysine sites. When applied to DIA workflows on an Orbitrap Ascend with 200 ug loaded, missed cleavages were reduced from ∼30% to <1% for peptides where the first basic amino acid is arginine (R), while remaining <5% for peptides where the first basic amino acid is lysine (K), compared to Lys-C/Trypsin. Error bars represent ±1 standard deviation from n = 3 replicates (digested independently). (d) Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra digestion improves peptide and protein identifications for label-free DIA proteomics. From the same samples in (c), Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra digestion increased the number of unique, fully cleaved peptides by 23% and protein identifications by 6% compared to Lys-C/Trypsin digestion. (e) Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra digestion improves peptide and protein identifications for multiplexed proteomics. From the samples described in (b), Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra digestion increased the number of unique, fully cleaved peptides by 29% and protein identifications by 11% compared to Lys-C/Trypsin digestion. A sum signal-to-noise ratio cutoff of 136 (2+) and 353 (3+) was applied, corresponding to a 10% coefficient of variation (CV) from ion statistics , .
Article Snippet: For TMTpro labeling, peptides were incubated with TMTpro reagents (Thermo Fisher, A52045) at a 7.5:1 tag-to-peptide mass ratio for 2 hours at room temperature.
Techniques: Labeling, Comparison, Sample Prep, Standard Deviation