Synergistic Arg-C Ultra and Lys-C Digestion for Quantitative Proteomics

Publication Year
2025

Type

Journal Article
Abstract

Shotgun proteomics hinges on complete enzymatic digestion of proteins into peptides. Incomplete digestion narrows proteome coverage and inflates variability in quantitative workflows, whether label-free DIA or multiplexing with isobaric tags. Sequential Lys-C/Trypsin digestions mitigate missed cleavages at lysine residues, but arginine sites remain a persistent challenge. Arg-C Ultra, a recently released cysteine protease, efficiently targets arginine residues but requires reducing conditions that inactivate Lys-C activity and compromise NHS- ester labeling in multiplexed workflows. Here, we systematically characterized Arg-C Ultra and Lys-C with chromogenic substrates that mimic arginine- and lysine-containing peptides, as well as shotgun proteomics. Arg-C Ultra operates optimally at room temperature, pH 7.5–8.5, under reducing conditions, whereas Lys-C is most active at 37 °C, pH 7.5–8.5, yet rapidly loses activity when exposed to common reductants. Among tested reducing agents, 1 mM TCEP uniquely preserved TMTpro integrity while sustaining Arg-C Ultra activity. Guided by these insights, we established a sequential digestion workflow that is fully compatible with both label- free DIA and TMTpro multiplexing. Proteins are first digested overnight with Lys-C at 37 °C (pH 8.5), then treated with 1 mM TCEP and Arg-C Ultra at room temperature (pH 8.5). The resulting peptides can be analyzed directly by label-free DIA or subjected to TMTpro labeling for multiplexed quantification. Applied to HeLa cell lysates, this protocol achieved >99% arginine and 95% lysine cleavage efficiencies, boosting the number of quantified proteins by 6% in label- free DIA and 11% in TMTproC experiments. Replicate measurements displayed reproducibility that approached the limits set by ion statistics. Thus, the introduced synergistic Lys-C/Arg-C Ultra digestion strategy enhances proteome coverage with excellent quantitative reproducibility across both label-free and multiplexed platforms.Competing Interest StatementCH and MR are employees of Promega Corporation, which provided reagents used in this study to the Wühr laboratory.National Institutes of Health (NIH), R35GM128813, T32GM007388Ludwig Cancer ResearchPrinceton Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Molecular and Quantitative & Computational BiologyPrinceton Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows in ChemistryPrinceton Catalysis Initiative

Journal
bioRxiv
Date Published
07/2025