In this study, a new type of immobilized metal-ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) resin for the isolation of phosphopeptides was synthesized which is based on the specific interaction between phosphate groups and chelated lanthanide metal ions. In this regard trivalent lanthanum, holmium and erbium ions were chelated to a highly porous phosphonate polymer which was prepared by radical polymerization of vinylphosphonic acid (VPA) and divinylbenzene (DVB). The developed method was evaluated with peptide mixtures from digested standard proteins (α-casein, β-casein and ovalbumin) as well as with bovine milk, egg white and a spiked HeLa cell lysate. Compared to the commonly used TiO2 approach, the presented method showed higher selectivity for phosphorylated peptides. This can be explained by the strong preference of trivalent lanthanide ions for phosphates with which they form very tight ionic bonds. Mono- and multiply phosphorylated peptides could be enriched and released in a single basic elution step, while non-phosphorylated peptides remained on the resin. Ab initio quantum mechanical energy minimizations of model complexes for polymer-ion-ligand interactions provided geometries, binding energies and charges which are discussed in conjunction with the observed experimental properties, leading to the most satisfying agreement. The presented lanthanide-IMAC resins represent promising affinity materials for the selective isolation of phosphopeptides from biological samples.

Reversible phosphorylation of proteins is a common theme in the regulation of important cellular functions such as growth, metabolism, and differentiation. The comprehensive understanding of biological processes requires the characterization of protein phosphorylation at the molecular level. Although, the number of cellular phosphoproteins is relatively high, the phosphorylated residues themselves are generally of low abundance due to the sub-stoichiometric nature. However, low abundance of phosphopeptides and low degree of phosphorylation typically necessitates isolation and concentration of phosphopeptides prior to mass spectrometric analysis. In this study, we used trivalent lanthanide ions (LaCl(3), CeCl(3), EuCl(3), TbCl(3), HoCl(3), ErCl(3), and TmCl(3)) for phosphopeptide enrichment and cleaning-up. Due to their low solubility product, lanthanide ions form stable complexes with the phosphate groups of phosphopeptides and precipitate out of solution. In a further step, non-phosphorylated compounds can easily be removed by simple centrifugation and washing before mass spectrometric analysis using Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation-time of flight. The precipitation method was applied for the isolation of phosphopeptides from standard proteins such as ovalbumin, α-casein, and β-casein. High enrichment of phosphopeptides could also be achieved for real samples such as fresh milk and egg white. The technology presented here represents an excellent and highly selective tool for phosphopeptide recovery; it is easily applicable and shows several advantages as compared with standard approaches such as TiO(2) or IMAC.

The basic idea of this study was to recover phosphopeptides after trypsin-assisted digestion of precipitated phosphoproteins using trivalent lanthanide ions. In the first step, phosphoproteins were extracted from the protein solution by precipitation with La(3+) and Ce(3+) ions, forming stable pellets. Additionally, the precipitated lanthanide-phosphoprotein complexes were suspended and directly digested on-pellet using trypsin. Non-phosphorylated peptides were released into the supernatants by enzymatic cleavage and phosphopeptides remained bound on the precipitated pellet. Further washing steps improved the removal of non-phosphorylated peptides. For the recovery of phosphopeptides the precipitated pellets were dissolved in 3.7% hydrochloric acid. The performance of this method was evaluated by several experiments using MALDI-TOF MS measurements and delivered the highest selectivity for phosphopeptides. This can be explained by the overwhelming preference of lanthanides for binding to oxygen-containing anions such as phosphates. The developed enrichment method was evaluated with several types of biological samples, including fresh milk and egg white. The uniqueness and the main advantages of the presented approach are the enrichment on the protein-level and the recovery of phosphopeptides on the peptide-level. This allows much easier handling, as the number of molecules on the peptide level is unavoidably higher, by complicating every enrichment strategy.

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Metal oxides show high selectivity and sensitivity toward mass spectrometry based enrichment strategies. Phosphopeptides/phosphoproteins enrichment from biological samples is cumbersome because of their low abundance. Phosphopeptides are of interest in enzymes and phosphorylation pathways which lead to the clinical links of a disease. Magnetic core-shell lanthanide oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4@SiO2-La2O3 and Fe3O4@SiO2-Sm2O3) are fabricated, characterized by SEM, FTIR, and EDX and employed in the enrichment of phosphopeptides. The nanoparticles enrich phosphopeptides from casein variants, nonfat milk, egg yolk, human serum and HeLa cell extract. The materials and enrichment protocols are designed in a way that there are almost no nonspecific bindings. The selectivity is achieved up to 1:8500 using β-casein/BSA mixture and sensitivity down to 1 atto-mole. Batch-to-batch reproducibility is high with the reuse of core-shell nanoparticles up to four cycles. The enrichment followed by MALDI-MS analyses is carried out for the identification of phosphopeptides from serum digest and HeLa cell extract. Characteristic phosphopeptides of phosphoproteins are identified from human serum after the enrichment, which have the diagnostic potential toward prostate cancer. Thus, the lanthanide based magnetic core-shell materials offer a highly selective and sensitive workflow in phosphoproteomics.