Research

Proteomic analysis of prolactinoma cells by immuno-laser capture microdissection combined with online two-dimensional nano-scale liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry

Yingchao Liu^1,2* , Jinsong Wu^2* , Guoquan Yan³ , Ruiping Hou⁴ , Dongxiao Zhuang² , Luping Chen² , Qi Pang¹ and Jianhong Zhu^2,5

¹  Department of Neurosurgery, Shandong Provincial hospital affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, 250021, China

²  Shanghai Neurosurgical Center, Department of Neurosurgery, Huashan Hospital, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200040, China

³  Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Institutes for Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

⁴  Department of Gastroenterology, Shandong Provincial Qianfoshan Hospital affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, 250014, China

⁵  National Key Lab for Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China

author email corresponding author email* Contributed equally

Proteome Science 2010, 8:2doi:10.1186/1477-5956-8-2

Published:	29 January 2010

Abstract

Background

Pituitary adenomas, the third most common intracranial tumor, comprise nearly 16.7% of intracranial neoplasm and 25%-44% of pituitary adenomas are prolactinomas. Prolactinoma represents a complex heterogeneous mixture of cells including prolactin (PRL), endothelial cells, fibroblasts, and other stromal cells, making it difficult to dissect the molecular and cellular mechanisms of prolactin cells in pituitary tumorigenesis through high-throughout-omics analysis. Our newly developed immuno-laser capture microdissection (LCM) method would permit rapid and reliable procurement of prolactin cells from this heterogeneous tissue. Thus, prolactin cell specific molecular events involved in pituitary tumorigenesis and cell signaling can be approached by proteomic analysis.

Results

Proteins from immuno-LCM captured prolactin cells were digested; resulting peptides were separated by two dimensional-nanoscale liquid chromatography (2D-nanoLC/MS) and characterized by tandem mass spectrometry. All MS/MS spectrums were analyzed by SEQUEST against the human International Protein Index database and a specific prolactinoma proteome consisting of 2243 proteins was identified. This collection of identified proteins by far represents the largest and the most comprehensive database of proteome for prolactinoma. Category analysis of the proteome revealed a widely unbiased access to various proteins with diverse functional characteristics.

Conclusions

This manuscript described a more comprehensive proteomic profile of prolactinomas compared to other previous published reports. Thanks to the application of immuno-LCM combined with online two-dimensional nano-scale liquid chromatography here permitted identification of more proteins and, to our best knowledge, generated the largest prolactinoma proteome. This enlarged proteome would contribute significantly to further understanding of prolactinoma tumorigenesis which is crucial to the management of prolactinomas.