PNNL

Abstract

O-Linked N-Acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) is a reversible post-translational modification of Ser and Thr residues on cytosolic and nuclear proteins found in all higher eukaryotes. Aberrant O-GlcNAc modification of brain proteins has been linked to Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, understanding specific functions of O-GlcNAcylation in AD has been impeded by the difficulty in characterization of O-GlcNAc sites on proteins. In this study, we modified a chemical/enzymatic photochemical cleavage approach for enriching O-GlcNAcylated peptides in samples containing ~100 µg of tryptic peptides from mouse cerebrocortical brain tissue. A total of 274 O-GlcNAcylated proteins were identified. Of these 168 were not previously known to be modified by O-GlcNAc. Overall, 458 O-GlcNAc sites on Ser and Thr residues in 195 proteins were identified. Many of the modified residues are either known phosphorylation sites or located in close proximity to known phosphorylation sites. These findings support the proposed regulatory crosstalk between O-GlcNAcylation and phosphorylation. This study produced the most comprehensive O-GlcNAc proteome of mammalian brain tissue with both protein identification and O-GlcNAc site assignment. Interestingly, we observed O-ß-GlcNAc on EGF-like repeats in the extracellular domains of five membrane proteins, thus representing the first evidence for extracellular O-GlcNAcylation in mammalian systems by the ER-resident O-GlcNAc transferase (EOGT). We also report a GlcNAc-ß1,3-Fuc-?-1-O-Thr modification on the EGF-like repeat of the Versican core protein, a novel substrate of Fringe ß1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferases.