An Optimized Trichloroacetic Acid/Acetone Precipitation Method for Two-Dimensional Gel Electrophoresis Analysis of Qinchuan Cattle Longissimus Dorsi Muscle Containing High Proportion of Marbling

PLoS One. 2015 Apr 20;10(4):e0124723. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0124723. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Longissimus dorsi muscle (LD) proteomics provides a novel opportunity to reveal the molecular mechanism behind intramuscular fat deposition. Unfortunately, the vast amounts of lipids and nucleic acids in this tissue hampered LD proteomics analysis. Trichloroacetic acid (TCA)/acetone precipitation is a widely used method to remove contaminants from protein samples. However, the high speed centrifugation employed in this method produces hard precipitates, which restrict contaminant elimination and protein re-dissolution. To address the problem, the centrifugation precipitates were first grinded with a glass tissue grinder and then washed with 90% acetone (TCA/acetone-G-W) in the present study. According to our result, the treatment for solid precipitate facilitated non-protein contaminant removal and protein re-dissolution, ultimately improving two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) analysis. Additionally, we also evaluated the effect of sample drying on 2-DE profile as well as protein yield. It was found that 30 min air-drying did not result in significant protein loss, but reduced horizontal streaking and smearing on 2-DE gel compared to 10 min. In summary, we developed an optimized TCA/acetone precipitation method for protein extraction of LD, in which the modifications improved the effectiveness of TCA/acetone method.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acetone / chemistry*
  • Animals
  • Cattle
  • Chemical Precipitation
  • Electrophoresis, Gel, Two-Dimensional / methods*
  • Lipids / chemistry
  • Muscle, Skeletal / chemistry*
  • Nucleic Acids / chemistry
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteome / analysis
  • Proteomics
  • Red Meat / analysis*
  • Trichloroacetic Acid / chemistry*

Substances

  • Lipids
  • Nucleic Acids
  • Proteins
  • Proteome
  • Acetone
  • Trichloroacetic Acid

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National 863 Program of China (#2013AA102505 & #2011AA100307-02) http://www.863.gov.cn/, National Natural Science Foundation (#31272411) http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/, National Beef and Yak Industrial Technology System (#CARS-38) http://www.moa.gov.cn/, National Science-technology Support Plan Projects (#2012BAD28B04-03) http://www.most.gov.cn/, Major Projects for New Varieties of Genetically Modified Organisms of China (#2011ZX08007-002) http://www.most.gov.cn/kjjh/, and Technical Innovation Engineering Project of Shaanxi Province (#2014KTZB02-02-01) http://www.sninfo.gov.cn:8083/initSnFirstPageList.do?method=initSnFirstPageList. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.