Example 5
Mass Spectrometry of Deglycosylated Human ST6Gal-I Enzymes
The molecular masses of variants of human ST6Gal-I expressed in HEK cells were analyzed. Delycosylated forms of human ST6Gal-I were analyzed using Micromass Q-Tof Ultima and Synapt G2 HDMS devices (Waters UK) and MassLynx V 4.1 software.
For deglycosylation samples of the sialyltransferase were denatured and reduced. To 100 μg sialyltransferase 45 μL denaturing buffer (6 M guanidinium hydrochloride) and 13 μL TCEP (=tris(2-carboxyethyl)phosphine; 0.1 mM, diluted in denaturing buffer) were added. Further the appropriate volume of ultrapure water was added, so that the overall concentration of guanidinium hydrochloride was about 4 M. After incubation of the sample for 1 h at 37° C. the buffer was changed using a Bio-Spin® 6 Tris column (Bio Rad), which was pre-equilibrated with ultrapure water. The whole sample was applied onto the column and eluted by centrifugation. To the resulting eluate 5.5 μL of 0.1 U/μL solution of PNGase-F was added and incubated at 37° C. over night. Afterwards the samples were adjusted to 30% ACN (=acetonitrile) and 1% FA (=formamide) and analyzed by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry.