L’étude des stratégies de séparations préparatrices de protéines par électrophorèse capillaire

Proteomics is a field of growing interest because the study of protein function and structure is essential to understand how an organism operates. This project is concerned with structural studies, or more precisely the primary amino acid sequence for identification of proteins. Protein determination starts with a protein extract obtained from tissue or a biological fluid, which can contain more than 1000 distinct proteins. Analytical techniques like two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-SDS-PAGE), which separates proteins based on their isoelectric point and molar mass, are then used to isolate the different proteins and permit their identification by liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (MS) typically. This project, inspired by the fractionation of a protein extract by 2D-SDS-PAGE, proposes to support or to replace it with multiple fractionations by capillary electrophoresis (CE) in a quasi-multidimensional scheme. The individual fractions, containing a single protein or a mixture of proteins much less complex than the original extract, would then be analyzed to identify the proteins by peptide mapping and by protein mass mapping using analytical separation techniques and MS. To obtain a peptide map of proteins isolated in a fraction, enzymatic or chemical proteolysis is carried out and the peptide fragments in the digest are separated. The generated peptide map is either compared to a second sample to reveal changes, or the exact masses of the peptides are submitted to search engine like MASCOT™, which permits the identification of proteins by interrogation of genomic data bases.   The exploitable advantages of CE compared to 2D-SDS-PAGE are its high separation efficiency, its rapid analysis and its easy automation. The challenge to overcome is its small quantity of mass available after CE fractionation due in part to protein adsorption on the capillary walls, but due mainly to the tiny sample volumes used in CE. To increase mass, a 75 µm ID capillary was used in this study. Also, the volume into which each fraction is collected was decreased from 1000 to 100 µL and each fraction was collected 10 times; in other words 10 injections of the protein mixture were made. On the other hand, protein adsorption leads to variations in peak area and migration time of a given protein which influences the repeatability of CE separations, a very important aspect since 10 cumulative separations are needed for fraction collection. There are numerous approaches to reduce this problem (e.g. using pH extremes for the background electrolyte, using dynamic or permanent capillary coatings, etc.) but in this project, studies focused on didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (DDAB), a surfactant that forms a semi-permanent wall coating in the capillary. The majority of work presented here was aimed at obtaining a reproducible CE separation of a standard protein mixture prepared in house (containing bovine serum albumin, carbonic anhydrase, α-lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin) while using the DDAB coating. Studies of this particular coating material revealed that it was necessary to regenerate the DDAB coating between each injection of the protein mixture under the studied conditions: collection of 5 fractions of 6 min each across a 30-min separation that followed the DDAB regeneration, repeated 10 times. However, CE-UV and HPLC-MS analyses of the collected fractions showed none of the expected proteins present; they seemed to be below the instrument detection limits. In addition, the MS analyses revealed that DDAB had accumulated in the collected fractions due to its desorption from the capillary walls. To confirm that our efforts to collect a certain protein mass were sufficient, CE coupled to laser-induced fluorescence detection (CE-LIF) was used to separate and then collect the protein albumin labeled with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) without the DDAB coating in the capillary. Analyses demonstrated that albumin-FITC was, in fact, present in the collected fraction. Peptide mapping was then successfully carried out using the enzyme chymotrypsin for digestion and CE-LIF for peptide mapping.

Keyphrases: Proteomics, Capillary electrophoresis, Fractionation, Didodecyldimethylammonium bromide, Laser-induced fluorescence, Peptide mapping, Protein characterization