AUTHOR=Gielbert Adriana , Thorne Jemma K. , Hope James TITLE=Pyroglutamyl-N-terminal prion protein fragments in sheep brain following the development of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences VOLUME=2 YEAR=2015 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-biosciences/articles/10.3389/fmolb.2015.00007 DOI=10.3389/fmolb.2015.00007 ISSN=2296-889X ABSTRACT=
Protein misfolding, protein aggregation and disruption to cellular proteostasis are key processes in the propagation of disease and, in some progressive neurodegenerative diseases of the central nervous system, the misfolded protein can act as a self-replicating template or prion converting its normal isoform into a misfolded copy of itself. We have investigated the sheep transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, scrapie, and developed a multiple selected reaction monitoring (mSRM) mass spectrometry assay to quantify brain peptides representing the “ragged” N-terminus and the core of ovine prion protein (PrPSc) by using Q-Tof mass spectrometry. This allowed us to identify pyroglutamylated N-terminal fragments of PrPSc at residues 86, 95 and 101, and establish that these fragments were likely to be the result of