Comprehensive identification of cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs) and uridine diphosphoglucuronosyl transferases (UGTs) in human liver microsomes (HLMs) was performed with an SDS-PAGE-free protocol. HLMs were solubilized with 5% v/v ionic liquid, 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium tetrafluoroborate, followed by tryptic digestion, and 2D-SCX-RPLC-ESI-MS/MS (LTQ XL) analysis in triplicate. In total, 27 CYPs and 12 UGTs were confidently identified with average sequence coverage as 30.99 and 25.07%, average peptide number as 14 and 13, and average unique peptide number as 7 and 4, respectively. The highly similar isoforms of CYP3A, CYP2C, and CYP4F subfamilies could be unambiguously differentiated from each other, despite the fact that the sequence similarity of CYP2C9 and CYP2C19 is 91%. In addition, protein spectral count was used to approximately evaluate the relative abundance of identified CYPs and UGTs, and the results agreed with previous immunochemistry reports.
Keywords:1-Butyl-3-methyl imidazolium tetrafluoroborate / 2D-LC-ESI-MS/MS / Cytochrome P450 enzyme / Protein spectral count / Uridine diphosphoglucuronosyl transferase Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher's web-site Liver is the main organ of metabolism in humans, through which both endogenous and exogenous substances might be converted into more polar metabolites that could be easily excreted from the body. Cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs) are the most important drug-metabolizing enzymes in mammals