Nonspecific Proteolysis-Based Glycomics Strategy for Bacterial Glycoproteins

Protein glycosylation is one of the most common and complex post-translational modifications. Many techniques have been developed to characterize the specific roles of glycans, the relationship between their structures and their impact on the functions of proteins. A common method for glycan analysis is to employ exoglycosidase cleavage to release N-linked glycans from glycoproteins or glycopeptides using Peptide-N-Glycosidase F (PNGase F). However, the glycan-protein linkages in bacteria are different and there is no enzyme available to release glycans from bacterial glycoproteins. In addition, free glycans have also been described in mammalian cells, bacteria, yeast, plants, and fish. In this article, we present a method that can characterize the N-linked glycosylation system in Campylobacter jejuni by detecting asparagine (Asn)-linked and free glycans that are not attached to their target proteins. In this method, total proteins from C. jejuni were digested by Pronase E with a higher enzyme to protein ratio (2:1−3:1) and a longer incubation time (48−72 h). The resulted Asn-glycans and free glycans were then purified using porous graphitic carbon cartridges, permethylated, and analyzed by mass spectrometry.