Extracellular phosphorylation of proteins was suggested in the late 1800s when it was demonstrated that casein contains phosphate. More recently, extracellular kinases that phosphorylate ...extracellular serine, threonine, and tyrosine residues of numerous proteins have been identified. However, the functional significance of extracellular phosphorylation of specific residues in the nervous system is poorly understood. Here we show that synaptic accumulation of GluN2B-containing N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) and pathological pain are controlled by ephrin-B-induced extracellular phosphorylation of a single tyrosine (p*Y504) in a highly conserved region of the fibronectin type III (FN3) domain of the receptor tyrosine kinase EphB2. Ligand-dependent Y504 phosphorylation modulates the EphB-NMDAR interaction in cortical and spinal cord neurons. Furthermore, Y504 phosphorylation enhances NMDAR localization and injury-induced pain behavior. By mediating inducible extracellular interactions that are capable of modulating animal behavior, extracellular tyrosine phosphorylation of EphBs may represent a previously unknown class of mechanism mediating protein interaction and function.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) causes lower respiratory tract infections that can be severe and sometimes fatal. The risk for severe RSV infection is highest in infants and older adults. A safe ...and effective RSV vaccine for older adults represents a serious unmet medical need due to higher morbidity and mortality in this age group. In this randomized, partially double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 1 dose-escalation study, we evaluated the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of an investigational messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine encoding the RSV fusion protein (F) stabilized in the prefusion conformation. The study was conducted in healthy younger adults (ages ≥18 and ≤49 years) and healthy older adults (ages ≥60 and ≤79 years). Participants received mRNA-1777 (V171) or placebo as a single intramuscular dose. For each dose level, three sentinel participants were administered open-label mRNA-1777 (V171). Seventy-two younger adults were randomized and administered 25, 100, or 200 µg mRNA-1777 (V171) or placebo, and 107 older adults were randomized and administered 25, 100, 200 or 300 µg mRNA-1777 (V171) or placebo. Primary objectives were safety and tolerability and secondary objectives included humoral and cell-mediated immunogenicity. All dose levels of mRNA-1777 (V171) were generally well tolerated and no serious adverse events related to the vaccine were reported. Immunization with mRNA-1777 (V171) elicited a humoral immune response as measured by increases in RSV neutralizing antibody titers, serum antibody titers to RSV prefusion F protein, D25 competing antibody titers to RSV prefusion F protein, and cell-mediated immune responses to RSV-F peptides.
A major challenge of lipidomics is to determine and quantify the precise content of complex lipidomes to the exact lipid molecular species. Often, multiple methods are needed to achieve sufficient ...lipidomic coverage to make these determinations. Multiplexed targeted assays offer a practical alternative to enable quantitative lipidomics amenable to quality control standards within a scalable platform. Herein, we developed a multiplexed normal phase liquid chromatography-hydrophilic interaction chromatography multiple reaction monitoring method that quantifies lipid molecular species across over 20 lipid classes spanning wide polarities in a single 20-min run. Analytical challenges such as in-source fragmentation, isomer separations, and concentration dynamics were addressed to ensure confidence in selectivity, quantification, and reproducibility. Utilizing multiple MS/MS product ions per lipid species not only improved the confidence of lipid identification but also enabled the determination of relative abundances of positional isomers in samples. Lipid class-based calibration curves were applied to interpolate lipid concentrations and guide sample dilution. Analytical validation was performed following FDA Bioanalytical Method Validation Guidance for Industry. We report repeatable and robust quantitation of 900 lipid species measured in NIST-SRM-1950 plasma, with over 700 lipids achieving inter-assay variability below 25%. To demonstrate proof of concept for biomarker discovery, we analyzed plasma from mice treated with a glucosylceramide synthase inhibitor, benzoxazole 1. We observed expected reductions in glucosylceramide levels in treated animals but, more notably, identified novel lipid biomarker candidates from the plasma lipidome. These data highlight the utility of this qualified lipidomic platform for enabling biological discovery.
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Growth of axons and dendrites is a dynamic process that involves guidance molecules, adhesion proteins, and neurotrophic factors. Although neurite extension is stimulated by the neurotrophin nerve ...growth factor (NGF), we found that the precursor of NGF, proNGF, induced acute collapse of growth cones of cultured hippocampal neurons. This retraction was initiated by an interaction between the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) and the sortilin family member SorCS2 (sortilin-related VPS10 domain-containing receptor 2). Binding of proNGF to the p75NTR-SorCS2 complex induced growth cone retraction by initiating the dissociation of the guanine nucleotide exchange factor Trio from the p75NTR-SorCS2 complex, resulting in decreased Rac activity and, consequently, growth cone collapse. The actin-bundling protein fascin was also inactivated, contributing to the destabilization and collapse of actin filaments. These results identify a bifunctional signaling mechanism by which proNGF regulates actin dynamics to acutely modulate neuronal morphology.
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tau is a common biomarker for Alzheimer disease (AD). Measurements of tau have historically been performed using immunoassays. Given the molecular diversity of tau in CSF, ...the selectivity of these immunoassays has often been questioned. Therefore, we aimed to develop an analytically sensitive and selective immunoaffinity liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) (IA-MS) assay.
IA-MS sample analysis involved the addition of an internal standard, immunoaffinity purification of tau using a tau monoclonal antibody coupled to magnetic beads, trypsin digestion, and quantification of a surrogate tau peptide by LC-MS/MS using a Waters Trizaic nanoTile ultraperformance LC microfluidic device. Further characterization of tau peptides was performed by full-scan MS using a Thermo Orbitrap LC-MS. CSF samples from a cohort of age-matched controls and patients with AD were analyzed by the IA-MS method as well as a commercially available immunoassay.
The IA-MS assay had intra- and interassay imprecision values of 3.2% to 8.1% CV and 7.8% to 18.9% C, respectively, a mean recovery of 106%, and a limit of quantification of 0.25 pmol/L and was able to quantify tau concentrations in all human specimens tested. The IA-MS assay showed a correlation of R(2) = 0.950 against a total-tau immunoassay. In patients with AD, tau was increased approximately 2-fold.
Combining immunoaffinity enrichment with microflow LC-MS/MS analysis is an effective approach for the development of a highly selective assay to measure total tau and, potentially, other posttranslationally modified forms of tau in CSF.
Lipids are structurally diverse molecules that play a pivotal role in a plethora of biological processes. However, deciphering the biological roles of the specific lipids is challenging due to the ...existence of numerous isomers. This high chemical complexity of the lipidome is one of the major challenges in lipidomics research, as the traditional liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based approaches are often not powerful enough to resolve these isomeric and isobaric nuances within complex samples. Thus, lipids are uniquely suited to the benefits provided by multidimensional liquid chromatography–ion mobility–mass spectrometry (LC-IM-MS) analysis. However, many forms of lipid isomerism, including double-bond positional isomers and regioisomers, are structurally similar such that their collision cross section (CCS) differences are unresolvable via conventional IM approaches. Here we evaluate the performance of a high resolution ion mobility (HRIM) system based on structures for lossless ion manipulation (SLIM) technology interfaced to a high resolution quadrupole time-of-flight (QTOF) analyzer to address the noted lipidomic isomerism challenge. SLIM implements the traveling wave ion mobility technique along an ∼13 m ion path, providing longer path lengths to enable improved separation of isomeric features. We demonstrate the power of HRIM-MS to dissect isomeric PC standards differing only in double bond (DB) and stereospecific number (SN) positions. The partial separation of protonated DB isomers is significantly enhanced when they are analyzed as metal adducts. For sodium adducts, we achieve close to baseline separation of three different PC 18:1/18:1 isomers with different cis-double bond locations. Similarly, PC 18:1/18:1 (cis-9) can be resolved from the corresponding PC 18:1/18:1 (trans-9) form. The separation capacity is further enhanced when using silver ion doping, enabling the baseline separation of regioisomers that cannot be resolved when measured as sodium adducts. The sensitivity and reproducibility of the approach were assessed, and the performance for more complex mixtures was benchmarked by identifying PC isomers in total brain and liver lipid extracts.
Quantitation of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAb) using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) for pharmacokinetic (PK) studies is becoming an essential complement to ...traditional antibody-based ligand binding assays (LBA). Here we show an automated method to perform LC–MS/MS-based quantitation, with IgG1 conserved peptides, a heavy isotope labeled mAb internal standard, and anti-human Fc enrichment. All reagents in the method are commercially available with no requirement to develop novel assay-specific reagents. The method met traditional quantitative LC–MS/MS assay analytical characteristics in terms of precision, accuracy, and specificity. The method was applied to the pharmacokinetic study of a mAb dosed in cynomolgus monkey, and the results were compared with the immunoassay data. This methodology has the potential to benefit and accelerate the early biopharmaceutical development process, particularly by enabling PK analysis across species and candidate molecules with minimal method development.
The quantitation of therapeutic antibodies by mass spectrometry often utilizes a surrogate peptide approach following enzymatic digestion of the antibody. Although this approach has been widely ...adopted, it is labor intensive with limited throughput in most instances. In addition, this approach can pose challenges when attempting to infer details such as quantity and modification state of the intact analyte. Recent enhancements in instrumentation and sample preparation have enabled quantitation through mass spectrometry detection of the intact protein circumnavigating many limitations of the surrogate peptide approach. Presented here is a method for quantitative analysis of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAb) at the fully intact level in a complex pharmacokinetic study. This methodology yielded sensitivity down to 0.1μg/mL from 30μL of a biological sample volume to be utilized across multiple preclinical species without the need for pooling.
Continued interest in protein therapeutics has motivated the development of improved bioanalytical tools to support development programs. LC-MS offers specificity, sensitivity, and multiplexing ...capabilities without the need for target-specific reagents, making it a valuable alternative to ligand binding assays. Immunoaffinity purification (IP) and enzymatic digestion are critical, yet extensive and time-consuming components of the "gold standard" bottom-up approach to LC-MS-based protein quantitation. In the present work, commercially available technology, based on membrane-immobilized reagents in spin column and plate format, is applied to reduce IP and digestion times from hours to minutes. For a standard monoclonal antibody, the lower limit of quantitation was 0.1 ng μL
−1
compared to 0.05 ng μL
−1
for the standard method. A pharmacokinetics (PK) study dosing Herceptin in rat was analyzed by both the membrane and the standard method with a total sample processing time of 4 h and 20 h, respectively. The calculated concentrations at each time point agreed within 8% between both methods, and PK values including area under the curve (AUC), half-life (T1/2), mean residence time (MRT), clearance (CL), and volume of distribution (Vdss) agreed within 6% underscoring the utility of the membrane methodology for quantitative bioanalysis workflows.
Rapid spin membrane technology decreases the time for IP and digestion of therapeutic proteins.
Purpose
We describe the outcome of the Biomarkers Consortium CSF Proteomics Project (where CSF is cerebral spinal fluid), a public–private partnership of government, academia, nonprofit, and ...industry. The goal of this study was to evaluate a multiplexed MS‐based approach for the qualification of candidate Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers using CSF samples from the AD Neuroimaging Initiative.
Experimental design
Reproducibility of sample processing, analytic variability, and ability to detect a variety of analytes of interest were thoroughly investigated. Multiple approaches to statistical analyses assessed whether panel analytes were associated with baseline pathology (mild cognitive impairment (MCI), AD) versus healthy controls or associated with progression for MCI patients, and included (i) univariate association analyses, (ii) univariate prediction models, (iii) exploratory multivariate analyses, and (iv) supervised multivariate analysis.
Results
A robust targeted MS‐based approach for the qualification of candidate AD biomarkers was developed. The results identified several peptides with potential diagnostic or predictive utility, with the most significant differences observed for the following peptides for differentiating (including peptides from hemoglobin A, hemoglobin B, and superoxide dismutase) or predicting (including peptides from neuronal pentraxin‐2, neurosecretory protein VGF (VGF), and secretogranin‐2) progression versus nonprogression from MCI to AD.
Conclusions and clinical relevance
These data provide potential insights into the biology of CSF in AD and MCI progression and provide a novel tool for AD researchers and clinicians working to improve diagnostic accuracy, evaluation of treatment efficacy, and early diagnosis.
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