Post-translational quantitation by SRM/MRM: applications in cardiology

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Post-translational modifications (PTMs) have an important role in the regulation of protein function, localization, and interaction with other molecules. PTMs apply a dynamic control of proteins in both physiological and pathological conditions. The study of disease-specific PTMs allows identifying potential biomarkers and developing effective drugs. Enrichment techniques combined with high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS)/MS analysis provide attractive results on PTM characterization. Selected reaction monitoring/multiple reaction monitoring (SRM/MRM) is a powerful targeted assay for the quantitation and validation of PTMs in complex biological samples.

Areas covered: The most frequent PTMs are described in terms of biological role and analytical methods commonly used to detect them. The applications of SRM/MRM for the absolute quantitation of PTMs are reported, and a specific section is focused on PTM detection in proteins that are involved in the cardiovascular system and heart diseases.

Expert commentary: PTM characterization in relation to disease pathology is still in progress, but targeted proteomics by LC-MS/MS has significantly upgraded our knowledge in the last few years. Advances in enrichment strategies and software tools will facilitate the interpretation of high PTM complexity. Promising studies confirm the great potential of SRM/MRM to study PTMs in the cardiovascular field, and PTMomics could be very useful in the clinical perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Biomarkers
• cardiovascular proteomics
• mass spectrometry
• multiple reaction monitoring
• post-translational modifications
• protein function
• selected reaction monitoring
• targeted proteomics

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

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Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose

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Funding

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.