Chemical Labeling Approaches

The isotope-coded affinity tag approach utilizes chemical labeling that allows quantitation when combined with mass spectrometry. ICAT is desirable because the chemical labeling takes advantage of the mass defects of monoisotopic stable isotopes. ICAT uses an ICAT reagent to differentially label protein samples on their cysteine residues. ICAT is advantageous because it permits the evaluation of low-abundance proteins and proteins at both extremes of molecular weights and isoelectric points.60... 

The idea behind the use of chemical labeling is a straightforward approach to simplify peak assignment into the proper ion series. If either peptide s C- or N-terminus is labeled by specific isotopic cluster, the labeled ions are easily recognizable on the spectrum and determination of the sequence string is no longer a problem. 

Another approach combines the mass spectrometric derivatization approach with chemical amplification (Reiner et al., 1997, 1998). In this instrument, H02 and R02 are converted to OH through the reactions in the chemical amplifier approach discussed below, and the OH is then converted to H2S04 by reaction with S02 and measured by chemical ionization mass spectrometry using NO, (HN03) clusters as described earlier. In this case, the use of isotopically labeled S02 is not necessary, since the ambient H2S04 concentration is much smaller than that of the peroxy radicals. 

Vetter, D. Chemical microarrays, fragment diversity, label-free imaging by plasmon resonance - a chemical genomics approach. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry 2002, 87, 79-84. 

Various alternatives to the ICAT and ICPL technologies have been reported but these methods are consistently based on chemical tagging at the peptide level. In this chapter, only the most common and promising peptide labeling approaches will be discussed (bill, 2003 Moritz and Meyer, 2003). 

Recent achievements in the development of active-site directed affinity probes for proteases and other enzyme classes provide direct chemical labeling of proteases of interest in the biological system (24-27). These specific activity probes allow joint evaluation of selective protease inhibition concomitant with labeling of relevant protease enzymes for more analyses. Moreover, activity-based probes that selectively label the main protease subclasses—cysteine, serine, metallo, aspartic, and threonine—can provide advantageous chemical approaches for functional protease identification. Activity probe labeling of proteases allows direct identihcation of enzyme proteins by tandem mass spectrometry. Such chemical probes directed to cysteine proteases have been instrumental for identification of the new cathepsin L cysteine protease pathway for neuropeptide biosynthesis, as summarized in this article. 

The hazard classification should lead directly to labelling of acute health effects, environmental and physical hazards. The labelling approach that involves a risk assessment should only be applied to chronic health hazards, e.g. carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity, or target organ systemic toxicity based on repeated exposure. The only chemicals it may be applied to are those in the consumer product setting where consumer exposures are generally limited in quantity and duration ... 

Using this isotope labeling approach, metabolites in human plasma have been quantified (38) and altered metabolites have been detected in urine that are due to metabolic disorders such as tyrosinemia type II, argininosuccinic aciduria, homocystinuria, and phenylketonuria (20). Most recently, a smart isotope tag, 15N-cholamine, has been developed for effective detection of the same metabolites using both NMR and MS methods. This approach maximizes the combined strengths of two powerful analytical techniques for a variety of metabolomics applications. 15N-cholamine possesses dual characteristics an NMR-sensitive heteronuclear isotope with good chemical shift dispersion and a permanent charge that improves MS sensitivity (48). 

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