Proteomic and functional profiles of a follicle-stimulating hormone positive human nonfunctional pituitary adenoma

Nonfunctional pituitary adenoma (NFPA) is highly heterogeneous with different hormone-expressed subtypes in NFPA tissues including follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) positive, luteinizing hormone-positive, FSH/luteinizing hormone-positive, and negative types. To analyze in-depth the variations in the proteomes among different NFPA subtypes for our long-term goal to clarify molecular mechanisms of NFPA and to detect tumor biomarker for personalized medicine practice, a reference map of proteome of a human FSH-expressed NFPA tissue was described here. 2DE and PDQuest image analysis were used to array each protein. MALDI-TOF PMF and human Swiss-Prot databases with MASCOT search were used to identify each protein. A good 2DE pattern with high level of between-gel reproducibility was attained with an average positional deviation 1.98 ± 0.75 mm in the IEF direction and 1.62 ± 0.68 mm in the SDS-PAGE direction. Approximately 1200 protein spots were 2DE-detected and 192 redundant proteins that were contained in 141 protein spots were PMF-identified, representing 107 nonredundant proteins. Those proteins were located in cytoplasm, nucleus, plasma membrane, extracellular space, and so on, and those functioned in transmembrane receptor, ion channel, transcription/translation regulator, transporter, enzyme, phosphatase, kinase, and so on. Several important pathway networks were characterized from those identified proteins with DAVID and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis systems, including gluconeogenesis and glycolysis, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, cell-cycle alteration, MAPKsignaling system, immune response, TP53-signaling, VEGF-signaling, and inflammation signaling pathways. Those resulting data contribute to a functional profile of the proteome of a human FSH-positive NFPA tissue, and will serve as a reference for the heterogeneity analysis of NFPA proteomes.