The goal of this thesis is to develop effective protein analysis technique. To achieve this, I investigated the temperature effect on ultrasound-assisted tryptic protein digestion and developed an effective protein extraction method from human hair.
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The goal of this thesis is to develop effective protein analysis technique. To achieve this, I investigated the temperature effect on ultrasound-assisted tryptic protein digestion and developed an effective protein extraction method from human hair.
First, the effects of temperature ultrasound-assisted tryptic protein digestion were investigated using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Three standard proteins, cytochrome c, myoglobin, and bovine serum albumin, were digested at 4?C (ice), room temperature (20-25?C), 37?C, and 55?C for 0 s, 30 s, 1 min, and 5 min, in a water bath under ultrasonication. It was found that the number of identified peptides generally increased with increasing temperature or digestion time. The best performance in terms of the number of identified peptides was observed at 55?C. Compared with conventional overnight digestion at 37?C without ultrasonication, digestions performed under ultrasonication generally produced more peptides in most of the above listed conditions. Ultrasound-assisted tryptic digestion at 55?C for 5 min showed better performance in terms of sequence coverage and the number of identified peptides for the three model proteins, compared with conventional overnight digestion. A more than doubled miscleavage ratio was observed with ultrasound-assisted tryptic digestions at 55?C for 5 min versus conventional overnight digestion.
Second, the effectiveness of microwave-assisted extraction of proteins from human hair samples was evaluated. Extractions were performed from 2 mg hair samples in an extraction solution consisting of 25 mM Tris?HCl (pH 8.5), 2.6 M thiourea, 5 M urea, and 5% mercaptoethanol. During extraction, samples were exposed to microwave radiation (600 W) for a specified incubation period (5?120 min). The extraction efficiency of samples that had been incubated for 60 min was similar to that of samples that had been heated at 50?C for 24 h using the conventional Shindai method.