Multimer-PAGE: A Method for Capturing and Resolving Protein Complexes in Biological Samples

Summary

A method for stabilizing and separating native protein complexes from unmodified tissue lysate using an amine-reactive protein cross-linker coupled to a novel two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) system is presented.

Abstract

There are many well-developed methods for purifying and studying single proteins and peptides. However, most cellular functions are carried out by networks of interacting protein complexes, which are often difficult to investigate because their binding is non-covalent and easily perturbed by purification techniques. This work describes a method of stabilizing and separating native protein complexes from unmodified tissue using two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Tissue lysate is loaded onto a non-denaturing blue-native polyacrylamide gel, then an electric current is applied until the protein migrates a short distance into the gel. The gel strip containing the migrated protein is then excised and incubated with the amine-reactive cross-linking reagent dithiobis(succinimidyl propionate), which covalently stabilizes protein complexes. The gel strip containing cross-linked complexes is then cast into a sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel, and the complexes are separated completely. The method relies on techniques and materials familiar to most molecular biologists, meaning it is inexpensive and easy to learn. While it is limited in its ability to adequately separate extremely large complexes, and has not been universally successful, the method was able to capture a wide variety of well-studied complexes, and is likely applicable to many systems of interest.

Introduction

Normal cellular function is dependent on protein-protein interactions^1,2. As a result, human diseases are often marked by perturbations in the assembly and behavior of various protein complexes³. The ability to characterize such interactions is therefore critical. Current means of detecting these interactions require purification of target proteins, often followed by pull-down of their interacting partners. Conventional purification is accomplished by differential centrifugation, precipitation, and/or chromatography⁴. These methods are time-consuming, must be alt....

Protocol

1. Tissue Preparation

1. Prepare 10 mL of 4x BN-PAGE sample buffer (200 mM Bis(2-hydroxyethyl)amino-tris(hydroxymethyl)methane (Bis-Tris), 200 mM NaCl, 40% w/v glycerol, 0.004% Ponceau S, pH 7.2).
   NOTE: This stock solution may be made in advance and stored at 4 °C.
2. Dilute 250 µL of 4x sample buffer in 750 µL dH₂O containing 1x commercial protease inhibitor cocktail. Vortex and chill on ice.
3. Homogenize 20 mg of target tissue in the 1 mL 1x ice-cold BN-PAGE sample buffer with 30 strokes of a clean dounce homogenizer.
   NOTE: For this demonstration experiment, the target tissue is whole rat brain tissue. ....

Results

In this demonstration experiment, multimer-PAGE was performed on whole rat brain lysate. The resultant separated proteins were blotted onto polyvinylidene diflouride (PVDF) membranes, and then probed with antibodies against proteins that are known to form complexes. Figure 1 shows a validation of the protocol by two means. First, we demonstrate that the cross-linked proteins are cleavable by addition of a reducing agent, meaning the observed higher molecular weight specie.......

Discussion

Protein-protein interactions are important for every task living things carry out. Because of this, they are the subject of intense scrutiny and research. Multimer-PAGE is a novel method for capturing, separating, and analyzing a wide range of protein complexes. We have previously demonstrated its applicability to studying oligimerization of the disease-associated protein α-synuclein¹¹. However, it is extensible to many protein complexes, as demonstrated in Figure 2. When com.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Chemicals
ε-Aminocaproic acid	Sigma	A2504
Acrylamide	Acros Organics	164855000	Toxic.
Acrylamide/bisacrilamide 37.5:1 (40%T stock solution)	BioRad	161-0148	Toxic.
Ammonium persulfate	Sigma	A3678
Anti rabbit IgG-HRP from goat	Santa Cruz Biotechnology	sc-2004
Bicinchoninic acid assay kit	Thermofisher	23225
Bis-tris	Sigma	B9754
Bovine serum albumin	Sigma	A9647
Butanol	Fisher Scientific	A399-1
Chemiluminescence substrate kit	ThermoFisher	24078
Coomassie blue G-250	Sigma-Aldrich	B0770
Digitonin	Sigma	D141	Toxic.
Dimethyl sulfoxide	Fisher Scientific	D128-1
Dithiobis(succinimidylpropionate)	Thermo Scientific	22585
Dry nonfat milk	LabScientific	M0841
Glycerol	Sigma	G9012
Glycine	Fisher Scientific	BP381-5
Halt Protease Inhibitor Cocktail	Thermofisher	78430
Hydrochloric acid	Fisher Scientific	A144SI-212	For titration. Caustic.
Methanol	Fisher Scientific	A412-4	For PVDF membrane activation. Toxic.
Monoclonal anti α-synuclein IgG from rabbit	Santa Cruz Biotechnology	sc-7011-R
N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethylenediamine	Sigma	T9281
N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide	Acros Organics	16479	Toxic.
NP40	Boston Bioproducts	P-872
Polysorbate 20 (tween-20)	Fisher Scientific	BP337-500
Polyvinylidene fluoride transfer membranes	Thermo Scientific	88518
Ponceau S	Sigma	P3504
Potassium chloride	Fisher Scientific	P217-3
Potassium phosphate monobasic	Sigma	P9791
Protease inhibitor cocktail	Thermo Scientific	88265
SDS solution (10% w/v)	BioRad	161-0416
Sodium chloride	Fisher Scientific	BP358-212
Sodium dodecyl sulfate	Sigma	L37771
Sodium phosphate monobasic	Fisher Scientific	BP329-1
Tricine	Sigma	T0377
Tris base	Fisher Scientific	BP152-500
Tris-HCl (0.5 M buffer, pH 6.8)	BioRad	161-0799
Tris-HCl (1.5 M buffer, pH 8.8)	BioRad	161-0798
Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Instruments
GE Imagequant LAS 4000	GE Healthcare	28-9558-10
ImageJ software	NIH
Synergy H1 microplate reader	BioTek
Gel Former + Stand	Biorad
Microfuge 22R centrifuge	Beckman Coulter
2 mL dounce homogenizer
Vortex mixer	Fisher Scientific
Ultrasonic tissue homogenizer	Fisher Scientific	FB120220