Trypsin Partially Cleaves Apolipoprotein A-I (ApoA-I) Precursor into Mature ApoA-I Hindering the Quantification of Naturally Occurring ApoA-I Proteoforms by Liquid Chromatography in Multiple Reaction Monitoring Mode Mass Spectrometry (LC-MRM-MS)

Apolipoprotein A-I (ApoA-I), one of the most abundant proteins in plasma and the major protein component of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), is naturally found in several proteoforms; two of them are ProApoA-I and mature ApoA-I. These two proteoforms of ApoA-I coexist in biological samples and differ only in their N-terminal end. Virtually, the only way to differentiate them is by detecting the proteoform-specific N-terminal proteolytic peptides (RHFWQQDEPPQSPWDR and DEPPQSPWDR, respectively) using liquid chromatography in multiple reaction monitoring mode mass spectrometry (LC-MRM-MS). We have developed a bottom-up LC-MRM-MS method to simultaneously detect proApoA-I and mature ApoA-I. To test the specificity of the method, we digested with trypsin purified mature ApoA-I and recombinant proApoA-I. As expected, only the N-term peptide corresponding to the mature ApoA-I proteoform (DEPPQSPWDR) was detected when digesting mature ApoA-I. However, the digestion of the proApoA-I produced not only the N-terminal peptide corresponding to proApoA-I (RHFWQQDEPPQSPWDR) but also the N-terminal tryptic peptide corresponding to mature ApoA-I (DEPPQSPWDR). This effect was produced by standard and high-specificity trypsin as well as by the Arg-C enzyme in a self-limited manner (approximately 10% of the total). The synthetic proApo-I peptide is not cleaved by trypsin, suggesting that the here reported effect is dependent on protein conformation. The effect is not negligible, as it can be detected by LC-MRM-MS, and correction calculations should be applied to accurately quantify proApoA-I and mature ApoA-I in biological samples where these two proteoforms may coexist.