New Opportunities and Challenges of Smart Polymers in Post-Translational Modification Proteomics

Guangyan Qing, Qi Lu, Yuting Xiong, Lei Zhang, Hongxi Wang, Xiuling Li, Xinmiao Liang, and Taolei Sun*

Adv. Mater., 2017, 29, 1604670

DOI: 10.1002/adma.201604670

Protein post-translational modifications (PTMs), which denote covalent additions of various functional groups (e.g., phosphate, glycan, methyl, or ubiquitin) to proteins, significantly increase protein complexity and diversity. PTMs play crucial roles in the regulation of protein functions and numerous cellular processes. However, in a living organism, native PTM proteins are typically present at substoichiometric levels, considerably impeding mass spectrometry-based analyses and identification. Over the past decade, the demand for in-depth PTM proteomics studies has spawned a variety of selective affinity materials capable of capturing trace amounts of PTM peptides from highly complex biosamples. However, novel design ideas or strategies are urgently required for fulfilling the increasingly complex and accurate requirements of PTM proteomics analysis, which can hardly be met by using the conventional enrichment materials. Considering two typical types of protein PTMs—phosphorylation and glycosylation, this article provides an overview of polymeric enrichment materials and emphasizes the superiority of smart polymer-based materials that can function in intelligent modes. Moreover, some smart separation materials are introduced to demonstrate the enticing prospects and the challenges of smart polymers applied in PTM proteomics.

智能聚合物在翻译后修饰蛋白质组学中的新机遇和挑战

蛋白质翻译后修饰（PTM），其表示各种官能团（例如，磷酸，聚糖，甲基或遍在蛋白）与蛋白质的共价添加，显着增加蛋白质复杂性和多样性。PTM在蛋白质功能的调节和许多细胞过程中起着至关重要的作用。然而，在活生物体中，天然PTM蛋白通常以亚化学计量水平存在，显着阻碍基于质谱的分析和鉴定。在过去十年中，对深入PTM蛋白质组学研究的需求催生了多种选择性亲和材料，能够从高度复杂的生物样品中捕获痕量的PTM肽。然而，迫切需要新颖的设计思想或策略来满足PTM蛋白质组学分析的日益复杂和准确的要求，这是使用常规富集材料难以满足的。考虑到两种典型类型的蛋白质PTM-磷酸化和糖基化，本文提供了聚合物富集材料的概述，并强调了智能聚合物材料的优越性，这些材料可以在智能模式下发挥作用。此外，还引入了一些智能分离材料，以展示PTM蛋白质组学中应用的智能聚合物的诱人前景和挑战。