Highly Multiplexed and Reproducible Ion-Current-Based Strategy for Large-Scale Quantitative Proteomics and the Application to Protein Expression Dynamics Induced by Methylprednisolone in 60 Rats

A proteome-level time-series study of drug effects (i.e., pharmacodynamics) is critical for understanding mechanisms of action and systems pharmacology, but is challenging, because of the requirement of a proteomics method for reliable quantification of many biological samples. Here, we describe a highly reproducible strategy, enabling a global, large-scale investigation of the expression dynamics of corticosteroid-regulated proteins in livers from adrenalectomized rats over 11 time points after drug dosing (0.5-66 h, N = 5/point). The analytical advances include (i) exhaustive tissue extraction with a Polytron/sonication procedure in a detergent cocktail buffer, and a cleanup/digestion procedure providing very consistent protein yields (relative standard deviation (RSD%) of 2.7%-6.4%) and peptide recoveries (4.1-9.0%) across the 60 animals; (ii) an ultrahigh-pressure nano-LC setup with substantially improved temperature stabilization, pump-noise suppression, and programmed interface cleaning, enabling excellent reproducibility for continuous analyses of numerous samples; (iii) separation on a 100-cm-long column (2-μm particles) with high reproducibility for days to enable both in-depth profiling and accurate peptide ion-current match; and (iv) well-controlled ion-current-based quantification. To obtain high-quality quantitative data necessary to describe the 11 time-points protein expression temporal profiles, strict criteria were used to define "quantifiable proteins". A total of 323 drug-responsive proteins were revealed with confidence, and the time profiles of these proteins provided new insights into the diverse temporal changes of biological cascades associated with hepatic metabolism, response to hormone stimuli, gluconeogenesis, inflammatory responses, and protein translation processes. Most profile changes persisted well after the drug was eliminated. The developed strategy can also be broadly applied in preclinical and clinical research, where the analysis of numerous biological replicates is crucial.