Existence of theoretical ribosomal protein mass fingerprints in bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology, Cell Biology, Microbiology
- Keywords
- ribosome, large subunit, ribosomal protein, small subunit, mass spectrometry, MALDI-TOF MS, microbial identification, ribosomal protein mass fingerprint, pattern recognition, ribosome typing
- Copyright
- © 2018 Ng
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Existence of theoretical ribosomal protein mass fingerprints in bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26511v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26511v1
Abstract
Ribosomes are highly conserved given the importance of protein synthesis to cell survival. Although small differences in structure and functions exists in ribosomes from different species of bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes, the general structure and function remains conserved across species in the same domain of life. Thus, are ribosomal proteins that constitute ribosomes highly conserved between species in the same domain or do they possess sufficient sequence variation that help identify individual species? Having differentiated sequence would mean that ribosomal proteins from different species might account for differences in structure and function of the ribosomes in different species. Using ribosomal protein amino acid sequence information from Ribosomal Protein Gene Database for calculating molecular mass of ribosomal proteins, this study sought to determine if the molecular mass of a set of ribosomal proteins from a species could constitute a unique ribosomal protein mass fingerprint. In addition, the question of whether unique ribosomal protein mass fingerprint exists between different species in the three domains of life was also examined. Results revealed that distinct molecular mass of individual ribosomal protein could aggregate into a unique ribosomal protein mass fingerprint for individual bacterial, archaeal and eukaryotic species. Such ribosomal protein mass fingerprints could potentially find use in microbial identification through gel-free matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) profiling of solubilized ribosomal proteins. Obtained ribosomal protein mass spectrum could be compared with those catalogued in a reference database of known microorganisms where pattern recognition algorithms could determine a match. Additionally, existence of theoretical ribosomal protein mass fingerprint across species in the three domains of life also pointed to the presence of small differences in structure and function of both the large and small ribosome subunit. Such differences could reveal possible differentiated ribosomal structure and function in different species even though the general structure and function of the ribosome is conserved across species. Collectively, distinct molecular mass of individual ribosomal proteins in species pointed to a unique ribosomal protein mass fingerprint that could find use in microbial identification through gel-free mass spectrometry analysis of solubilized ribosomal proteins. Differences in mass of ribosomal proteins across species also highlighted existence of ribosomes of differentiated structure and function between different species even though the general structure and function of the ribosome remains highly conserved.
Author Comment
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Supplemental Information
Comparisons of ribosomal proteins from different species
Comparisons of ribosomal proteins from different species