单细胞蛋白质组学描绘人原代CD8+ T细胞蛋白图谱

Single-Cell Proteomic Profiling of Human Primary CD8+ T Cells

  • 摘要: 本研究建立了针对单个人原代CD8+ T细胞的单细胞蛋白质组学分析方法。采用CellenONE全自动单细胞分选仪,实现对单细胞的温和、精准分离,使用timsTOF Ultra 2质谱仪进行蛋白质及翻译后修饰的高灵敏鉴定。结果表明,从单个人原代CD8+ T细胞中鉴定到2 500余种蛋白质和16 000余条肽段;蛋白亚细胞定位分析显示其分布主要为细胞质(1 186个)、细胞核(891个)、线粒体(261个)及细胞膜(181个)。翻译后修饰分析显示,在单个细胞中鉴定到32种磷酸化、64种甲基化及356种乙酰化修饰蛋白。功能富集分析表明,所鉴定到的蛋白质功能主要富集于核糖体与免疫相关通路。综上,本研究描绘了人原代CD8+ T细胞的蛋白质组组成及翻译后修饰谱,证实了单细胞蛋白质组学技术在解析单细胞复杂生命活动方面的应用潜力。

     

    Abstract: Single-cell proteomics (SCP) has emerged as a transformative technique that overcomes the averaging effects inherent in bulk-cell analyses, enabling high-resolution profiling of protein expression and post-translational modification (PTM) with single-cell resolution. Human primary CD8+ T cells serve as central effector cells in the human immune response, playing crucial roles in combating pathogenic infections and mediating immune surveillance. Understanding the proteomic architecture of human immune cells is crucial for elucidating their diverse functional states, yet human primary CD8+ T cells remain largely unexplored by single-cell proteomics (SCP) due to their characteristically small cellular size and extremely limited protein content, which collectively pose significant technical obstacles for high-sensitivity protein identification and PTM detection at the single-cell level. This study successfully established a robust SCP analytical workflow to characterize the proteomic landscape of individual human primary CD8+ T cells. The workflow first utilized the CellenONE automated single-cell sorter for gentle and precise cell isolation, and was followed by the analysis of protein composition and PTM identification using the high-sensitivity timsTOF Ultra 2 mass spectrometer. This SCP approach consistently identified over 2 500 proteins and more than 16 000 peptides from individual human primary CD8+ T cells. Protein abundance across single cells demonstrate strong reproducibility, with pairwise correlations exceeding 0.77 and a median coefficient of variation (CV) of 28.61%. Subcellular localization analysis revealed that the identified proteins are primarily distributed in the cytoplasm (1 186 proteins), nucleus (891 proteins), mitochondria (261 proteins), and cell membrane (181 proteins), reflecting the diverse functional compartments within human primary CD8+ T cells. Furthermore, PTM profiling identifies 32 phosphorylated, 64 methylated, and 356 acetylated proteins per cell, with acetylation being the most prevalent modification. These PTM proteins are also mainly localized to the cytoplasm and nucleus. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses indicated that the functional categories of proteins in human primary CD8+ T cells are predominantly enriched in ribosomal and immune-related pathways, emphasizing the central role of protein synthesis and immune regulatory networks in human primary CD8+ T cell function. In conclusion, the SCP workflow developed in this study presents the first high-resolution proteome and PTM atlas of human primary CD8+ T cells, providing a valuable foundation for elucidating complex cellular processes and guiding future research into disease mechanisms and therapeutic targeting.

     

/

返回文章
返回