Mass spectrometry in coupling with affinity capture-release and isotope-coded affinity tags for quantitative protein analysis

Affinity capture-release electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ACESIMS) and isotope-coded affinity tags (ICAT) are two recently introduced techniques for the quantitation of protein activity and content with applications to clinical enzymology and functional proteomics, respectively. One common feature of these methods is that they use biotinylated tags that function as molecular handles for highly selective and reversible affinity capture of conjugates from complex biological mixtures such as cell homogenates and sub-cellular organelles. ACESIMS uses synthetic substrate conjugates specifically to target cellular enzymes that, when deficient, are the cause of genetic diseases. Multiplex determination of enzyme activities is used for the diagnosis of lysosomal storage diseases. The ICAT method relies on selective conjugation of cysteine thiol groups in proteins, followed by enzymatic digestion and quantitative analysis of peptide conjugates by mass spectrometry. Another common feature of the ACESIMS and ICAT approaches is that both use conjugates labeled with stable heavy isotopes as internal standards for quantitation. Selected applications of the ACESIMS and ICAT techniques are presented that include molecular-level diagnosis of genetic diseases in children and quantitative determination of protein expression in cells.