化学酶法标记整合质谱技术在蛋白质糖基化分析中的研究进展

Application Progress of Chemoenzymatic Labeling-Assisted Mass Spectrometry in Protein Glycosylation Analysis

  • 摘要: 蛋白质糖基化是最丰富、最复杂的翻译后修饰(PTMs)之一,在蛋白质折叠、稳定、信号传导、细胞黏附和免疫调控等多种生物学过程中发挥着关键作用。糖基化异常与多种疾病的发生发展密切相关,包括癌症、神经退行性疾病和代谢性疾病等。由于糖基化具有高度的动态性和异质性,其结构解析和功能研究仍面临挑战。近年来,质谱(MS)技术在糖蛋白质组学研究中发挥着重要作用,能够实现糖基化修饰位点、糖链结构及丰度的解析。然而,由于传统富集糖链的策略存在特异性不足或覆盖率有限等局限,糖蛋白质组学鉴定仍任重而道远。近年来,化学酶法通过利用重组酶对底物的高选择性以及化学标记的高灵敏性,为部分糖基化的特异性标记、成像、富集与质谱鉴定提供了强有力的工具。本文综述了化学酶法辅助的质谱技术在糖蛋白质组学中的发展与应用,重点介绍了其在N-糖基化、O-乙酰氨基葡萄糖(O-GlcNAc)及黏蛋白型O-乙酰氨基半乳糖(O-GalNAc)等糖基化类型研究中的最新进展,并探讨其在疾病机制研究和精准医学中的潜在应用价值。

     

    Abstract: Protein glycosylation is one of the most abundant and structurally diverse post-translational modifications (PTMs) in eukaryotic systems. Unlike template-driven biosynthesis, glycosylation is synergistically regulated by multiple glycosyltransferases, glycosidases, and glycan transporters, resulting in extensive structural heterogeneity at both macroscopic and microscopic levels. This inherent complexity enables glycosylation to play an important role in protein folding, stability, quality control, intercellular communication, signal transduction, and immune regulation. The dysregulation of glycosylation is associated with a wide range of pathological conditions, including cancer, metabolic disorders, inflammatory diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases, highlighting the importance of comprehensive and site-specific glycoproteomic analysis. Recently, glycoproteomics based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) has become a pivotal analytical platform for characterizing intact glycopeptides, which is capable of simultaneously identifying peptide backbones, glycosylation sites, and glycan structures. However, the low abundance of glycoproteins in complex biological samples, coupled with the low ionization efficiency and significant structural heterogeneity of glycopeptides, poses significant challenges for comprehensive and unbiased glycosylation analysis. Chemoenzymatic labeling strategies have emerged as powerful and versatile tools in MS-based glycoproteomics, offering unique advantages for the selective enrichment, identification, and quantitative analysis of protein glycosylation. By combining the strict substrate specificity of enzymes (e.g., glycosyltransferases and glycosidases) with the flexibility of chemical tagging reactions, these approaches enable precise characterization of glycosylation while maintaining compatibility with complex biological samples. Compared with conventional physicochemical or affinity-based enrichment methods, chemoenzymatic strategies provide improved structural specificity and enhanced adaptability to different glycosylation types. This review focused on recent methodological advances in chemoenzymatic labeling-assisted MS workflows for glycoproteomic analysis. Representative labeling strategies were systematically summarized according to glycosylation types, including N-glycosylation, O-GlcNAcylation, mucin-type O-GalNAcylation, and others. Among these chemoenzymatic labeling strategies, researchers have introduced innovations in probe design and synthesis, the selection of enzymatic tools, enrichment approaches, and tag-cleavage strategies, enabling these labeling methods to be more effectively integrated into glycoproteomic workflows. In addition to enrichment strategies, recent advances in tandem MS fragmentation modes and glycopeptide-centric data analysis software have significantly improved the scope and depth of glycosylation identification. The integration of chemoenzymatic labeling with advanced MS technology establishes a robust framework for high-throughput and quantitative glycoproteomics. In summary, the chemoenzymatic strategy connects chemical biology and MS, providing high selectivity, sensitivity in glycosylation analysis. Continuous innovation in enzyme engineering, labeled probe design, enrichment materials, and computational analysis is expected to further expand the scope of glycoproteomics, enabling a deeper understanding of the biological processes involved in glycosylation regulation and promoting translational applications in disease mechanism research and precision medicine.

     

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