Evaluation of microwave-accelerated residue-specific acid cleavage for proteomic applications

Microwave-accelerated proteolysis using acetic acid has been shown to occur specifically on either or both sides of aspartic acid residues. This chemical cleavage has been applied to ovalbumin and several model peptides to test the effect on some of the more common post-translational modifications. No oxidation of methionine or cysteine was observed; however, hydrolysis of phosphate groups proceeds at a detectable rate. Acid cleavage was also extended to the yeast ribosome model proteome, where it provided information on 74% of that proteome. Aspartic acid occurs across the proteome with approximately half the frequency of the combined occurrence of the trypsin residues lysine and arginine, and implications of this are considered.