Detection of four oxidation sites in viral prolyl-4-hydroxylase by top-down mass spectrometry.

Oxidative inactivation is a common problem for enzymatic reactions that proceed via iron oxo intermediates. In an investigation of the inactivation of a viral prolyl-4-hydroxylase (26 kD), electrospray mass spectrometry (MS) directly shows the degree of oxidation under varying experimental conditions, but indicates the addition at most of three oxygen atoms per molecule. Thus, molecular ion masses (M + nO) of one sample indicate the oxygen atom adducts n = 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 of 35, 41, 19, 5 +/- 3, and <2%, respectively; "top-down" MS/MS of these ions show oxidation at the sites R(28)-V(31), E(95)-F(107), and K(216) of 22%, 28%, and 34%, respectively, but with a possible (approximately 4%) fourth site at V(125)-D(150). However, for the doubly oxidized molecular ions (increasing the precursor oxygen content from 0.94 to 2), MS/MS showed an easily observable approximately 13% oxygen at the V(125)-D(150) site. For the "bottom-up" approach, detection of the approximately 4% oxidation at the V(125)-D(150) site by MS analysis of a proteolysis mixture would have been very difficult. The unmodified peptide containing this site would represent a few percent of the proteolysis mixture; the oxidized peptide not only would be just approximately 4% of this, but the uniqueness of its mass value (approximately 1-2 kD) would be far less than the 11,933 Dalton value used here. Using different molecular ion precursors for top-down MS/MS also provides kinetic data from a single sample, that is, from molecular ions with 0.94 and 2 oxygens. Little oxidation occurs at V(125)-D(150) until K(216) is oxidized, suggesting that these are competitively catalyzed by the iron center; among several prolyl-4-hydroxylases the K(216), H(137), and D(139) are conserved residues.