Quantitative Proteogenomics and the Reconstruction of the Metabolic Pathway in Lactobacillus mucosae LM1

Lactobacillus mucosae is a natural resident of the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals and a potential probiotic bacterium. To understand the global protein expression profile and metabolic features of L. mucosae LM1 in the early stationary phase, the QExactive(TM) Hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer was used. Characterization of the intracellular proteome identified 842 proteins, accounting for approximately 35% of the 2,404 protein-coding sequences in the complete genome of L. mucosae LM1. Proteome quantification using QExactive(TM) Orbitrap MS detected 19 highly abundant proteins (> 1.0% of the intracellular proteome), including CysK (cysteine synthase, 5.41%) and EF-Tu (elongation factor Tu, 4.91%), which are involved in cell survival against environmental stresses. Metabolic pathway annotation of LM1 proteome using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database showed that half of the proteins expressed are important for basic metabolic and biosynthetic processes, and the other half might be structurally important or involved in basic cellular processes. In addition, glycogen biosynthesis was activated in the early stationary phase, which is important for energy storage and maintenance. The proteogenomic data presented in this study provide a suitable reference to understand the protein expression pattern of lactobacilli in standard conditions.