NPCs were immuno-purified from Mlp1, Nup82, and Nup84 tagged S. cerevisiae strains. After native elution, 0.5 or 1.0 mM disuccinimidyl suberate (DSS) was added and sample incubated at room temperature for 30 min with gentle shaking (~1,000 rpm). The reaction was quenched with 50 mM ammonium bicarbonate or SDS PAGE buffer containing 100 mM Tris-HCl. The sample was then precipitated using 90% methanol at −80°C or concentrated in a speed vacuum before separation by SDS electrophoresis.
The sample was reduced by 10 mM tris-(2-carboxyethyl)-phosphine (Invitrogen) at 80°C for 15–20 mins, cooled to room temperature, and alkylated by 50 mM iodoacetamide for 20 min in the dark to block the formation of disulfide bonds. After reduction and alkylation, the cross-linked complexes were separated by 3–8% SDS-PAGE (NuPAGE Tris-Acetate Fisher) to reduce the complexity of the sample. For in-gel digestion, the high molecular weight region gel bands (> 460 kDa, estimated by the high MW protein markers, Invitrogen) corresponding to the cross-linked NPC proteins were sliced and proteolysed by trypsin as previously described66 (link),67 (link). Briefly, gel plugs were crushed into small pieces, ~5–10 µg of sequencing grade trypsin (Promega) per ~100 µg protein was added with subsequent 6 – 8 hour incubation. This proteolysis was repeated once more to ensure optimal results. Peptides were extracted by formic acid and acetonitrile, desalted on C18 cartridges (Waters), and snap-freezed prior to fractionation.
To reduce the complexity of the sample, proteolyzed mixtures were separated by an orthogonal, two-step fractionation strategy. First, peptide size chromatography68 (link) was used for size-based separation into 2 – 4 fractions (~2–10 kDa). Then, a secondary fractionation, using a self-packed basic (pH10) C18 resins (Dr. Masch GmbH), resulted in 10 – 12 peptide fractions which were subsequently analyzed by LC/MS.
Each peptide fraction was dissolved in the sample loading buffer (5% MeOH, 0.2% FA) and analyzed either by an Orbitrap Q Exactive (QE) Plus mass spectrometer or a LTQ Velos Orbitrap Pro mass spectrometer(Thermo Fisher). The QE instrument was directly coupled to an easy-nLC system (Thermo Fisher) for electrospray. The cross-linked peptides were loaded onto the Easy-Spray columns (15 cm prepacked columns that are filled with C18 reverse phase material of 2 or 3 µm particle size, 200 Å pore size and 50 µm inner diameter, Thermo fisher) that were heated to 35 °C. Mobile phase A consisted of 0.1% formic acid and mobile phase B of 100% ACN with 0.1% formic acid. Peptides were eluted in LC gradients of 120 minutes (e.g., a LC gradient of 3–7% B, 0–6 minutes, 7–28% B, 6–101 minutes, 28–100%B, 101–113 minutes, followed by equilibration with 100% A until 120 minutes). Flow rates were set at ~250–275 nl/min. Other instrumental parameters for CX-MS analyses include: capillary temperature: 250–275 °C; target mass resolutions (at 200 Th): 70,000 for MS and 17,500 for MS/MS; AGC targets: 1–3 × 106 (full mass) and 2 × 105 (MS/MS); MS range of 300–1,700 Th; isolation window: 1.3–1.7 Th; HCD normalized energy: 24–29; dynamic exclusion allowed once per 75–90 s. The top 8 most abundant ions (with charge stage of 3–7 and intensity thresholds of 3,000–7,500 ions) were selected for fragmentation by HCD. The max injection times were set at 200 ms (for MS) and 500–800 ms (for MS/MS). For samples that were analyzed by Orbitrap Velos, the cross-linked peptide mixtures were pressure-loaded onto a self-packed PicoFrit® column with integrated electrospray ionization emitter tip (360 O.D, 75 I.D with 15 µm tip, New Objective). The column was packed with 10–15 cm reverse-phase C18 material (3 µm porous silica, 200 Å pore size, Dr. Maisch GmbH). Mobile phase A consisted of 0.5% acetic acid and mobile phase B of 70% ACN with 0.5% acetic acid. The peptides were eluted in a 120 or a 140-minute LC gradient (8% B to 50% B, 0–93 minutes, followed by 50% B to 100% B, 93–110 minutes and equilibrated with 100% A until 120 or 150 minutes) using a HPLC system (Agilent), and analyzed with a LTQ Velos Orbitrap Pro mass spectrometer using similar parameters to the QE instrument.
The raw data were searched by pLink69 (link) using a FASTA database containing 34 NPC protein sequences. An initial MS1 search window of 5 Da was allowed to cover all isotopic peaks of the cross-linked peptides. The data were automatically filtered using a mass accuracy of MS1 ≤ 10 ppm (parts per million) and MS2 ≤ 20 ppm of the theoretical monoisotopic (A0) and other isotopic masses (A+1, A+2, A+3, and A+4) as specified in the software. Other search parameters include cysteine carbamidomethyl as a fixed modification, and methionine oxidation as a variable modification. A maximum of two trypsin missed-cleavage sites was allowed. The initial search results were obtained using a default 5% false discovery rate (FDR) expected by target-decoy search strategy. All spectra were manually verified as previously described66 (link),67 (link),70 (link)–72 (link). The cross-linking data was analyzed and plotted by an on-line software tool of CX-Circos (http://cx-circos.net ; manuscript in preparation) (Fig. 2 ).
The sample was reduced by 10 mM tris-(2-carboxyethyl)-phosphine (Invitrogen) at 80°C for 15–20 mins, cooled to room temperature, and alkylated by 50 mM iodoacetamide for 20 min in the dark to block the formation of disulfide bonds. After reduction and alkylation, the cross-linked complexes were separated by 3–8% SDS-PAGE (NuPAGE Tris-Acetate Fisher) to reduce the complexity of the sample. For in-gel digestion, the high molecular weight region gel bands (> 460 kDa, estimated by the high MW protein markers, Invitrogen) corresponding to the cross-linked NPC proteins were sliced and proteolysed by trypsin as previously described66 (link),67 (link). Briefly, gel plugs were crushed into small pieces, ~5–10 µg of sequencing grade trypsin (Promega) per ~100 µg protein was added with subsequent 6 – 8 hour incubation. This proteolysis was repeated once more to ensure optimal results. Peptides were extracted by formic acid and acetonitrile, desalted on C18 cartridges (Waters), and snap-freezed prior to fractionation.
To reduce the complexity of the sample, proteolyzed mixtures were separated by an orthogonal, two-step fractionation strategy. First, peptide size chromatography68 (link) was used for size-based separation into 2 – 4 fractions (~2–10 kDa). Then, a secondary fractionation, using a self-packed basic (pH10) C18 resins (Dr. Masch GmbH), resulted in 10 – 12 peptide fractions which were subsequently analyzed by LC/MS.
Each peptide fraction was dissolved in the sample loading buffer (5% MeOH, 0.2% FA) and analyzed either by an Orbitrap Q Exactive (QE) Plus mass spectrometer or a LTQ Velos Orbitrap Pro mass spectrometer(Thermo Fisher). The QE instrument was directly coupled to an easy-nLC system (Thermo Fisher) for electrospray. The cross-linked peptides were loaded onto the Easy-Spray columns (15 cm prepacked columns that are filled with C18 reverse phase material of 2 or 3 µm particle size, 200 Å pore size and 50 µm inner diameter, Thermo fisher) that were heated to 35 °C. Mobile phase A consisted of 0.1% formic acid and mobile phase B of 100% ACN with 0.1% formic acid. Peptides were eluted in LC gradients of 120 minutes (e.g., a LC gradient of 3–7% B, 0–6 minutes, 7–28% B, 6–101 minutes, 28–100%B, 101–113 minutes, followed by equilibration with 100% A until 120 minutes). Flow rates were set at ~250–275 nl/min. Other instrumental parameters for CX-MS analyses include: capillary temperature: 250–275 °C; target mass resolutions (at 200 Th): 70,000 for MS and 17,500 for MS/MS; AGC targets: 1–3 × 106 (full mass) and 2 × 105 (MS/MS); MS range of 300–1,700 Th; isolation window: 1.3–1.7 Th; HCD normalized energy: 24–29; dynamic exclusion allowed once per 75–90 s. The top 8 most abundant ions (with charge stage of 3–7 and intensity thresholds of 3,000–7,500 ions) were selected for fragmentation by HCD. The max injection times were set at 200 ms (for MS) and 500–800 ms (for MS/MS). For samples that were analyzed by Orbitrap Velos, the cross-linked peptide mixtures were pressure-loaded onto a self-packed PicoFrit® column with integrated electrospray ionization emitter tip (360 O.D, 75 I.D with 15 µm tip, New Objective). The column was packed with 10–15 cm reverse-phase C18 material (3 µm porous silica, 200 Å pore size, Dr. Maisch GmbH). Mobile phase A consisted of 0.5% acetic acid and mobile phase B of 70% ACN with 0.5% acetic acid. The peptides were eluted in a 120 or a 140-minute LC gradient (8% B to 50% B, 0–93 minutes, followed by 50% B to 100% B, 93–110 minutes and equilibrated with 100% A until 120 or 150 minutes) using a HPLC system (Agilent), and analyzed with a LTQ Velos Orbitrap Pro mass spectrometer using similar parameters to the QE instrument.
The raw data were searched by pLink69 (link) using a FASTA database containing 34 NPC protein sequences. An initial MS1 search window of 5 Da was allowed to cover all isotopic peaks of the cross-linked peptides. The data were automatically filtered using a mass accuracy of MS1 ≤ 10 ppm (parts per million) and MS2 ≤ 20 ppm of the theoretical monoisotopic (A0) and other isotopic masses (A+1, A+2, A+3, and A+4) as specified in the software. Other search parameters include cysteine carbamidomethyl as a fixed modification, and methionine oxidation as a variable modification. A maximum of two trypsin missed-cleavage sites was allowed. The initial search results were obtained using a default 5% false discovery rate (FDR) expected by target-decoy search strategy. All spectra were manually verified as previously described66 (link),67 (link),70 (link)–72 (link). The cross-linking data was analyzed and plotted by an on-line software tool of CX-Circos (