Abstract
Neuropeptidomics refers to a global characterization approach for the investigation of neuropeptides, often under specific physiological conditions. Neuropeptides comprise a complex set of signaling molecules that are involved in regulatory functions and behavioral control in the nervous system. Neuropeptidomics is inherently challenging because neuropeptides are spatially, temporally, and chemically heterogeneous, making them difficult to predict in silico from genomic information. Mature neuropeptides are produced from intricate enzymatic processing of precursor proteins/prohormones via a range of posttranslational modifications, resulting in multiple final peptide products from each prohormone gene. Although there are several methods for targeted peptide studies, mass spectrometry (MS), with its qualitative and quantitative capabilities, is ideally suited to the task. MS provides fast, sensitive, accurate, and high-throughput peptidomic analysis of neuropeptides without requiring prior knowledge of the peptide sequences. Aided by liquid chromatography (LC) separations and bioinformatics, MS is quickly becoming a leading technique in neuropeptidomics. This chapter describes several LC-MS analytical methods to identify, characterize, and quantify neuropeptides while emphasizing the sample preparation steps so integral to experimental success.
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Acknowledgments
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award No. CHE-0526692, by Award No. NS031609 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and Award No. DA018310 from the National Institute On Drug Abuse (NIDA). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF, NIDA, NINDS, or National Institutes of Health.
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Yin, P., Hou, X., Romanova, E.V., Sweedler, J.V. (2011). Neuropeptidomics: Mass Spectrometry-Based Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis. In: Merighi, A. (eds) Neuropeptides. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 789. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-310-3_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-310-3_14
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