Differentiation of Central Slovenian and Moscow populations of Rana temporaria frogs using peptide biomarkers of temporins family

• Published in: Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry Vol. 413; no. 21; pp. 5333 - 5347
• Main Authors: Samgina, T. Yu, Vasileva, I. D., Kovalev, S. V., Trebse, P., Torkar, G., Surin, A. K., Zubarev, R. A., Lebedev, A. T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-09-2021; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Amino acids; Amphibians; Analytical Chemistry; Biochemistry; Biological activity; Biomarkers; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Comparative analysis; Differentiation; Food Science; Frogs; Genetic aspects; Laboratory Medicine; Mass spectrometry; Mass spectroscopy; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Methods; Microorganisms; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Peptides; Populations; Predators; Rana temporaria; Research Paper; Scientific imaging; Species; Spectroscopy; Taxonomy; Sweden; Slovenia; Russia; Natural peptides’ sequencing; Tandem mass spectrometry; Temporins; Skin peptidome; Taxonomy; Biomarkers; Orbitrap; populations
• ISSN: 1618-2642; 1618-2650; 1618-2650
• DOI: 10.1007/s00216-021-03506-1

Skin secretion represents the only means of defense for the majority of frog species. That phenomenon is based on the fact that the main components of the secretion are peptides demonstrating greatly varying types of bioactivity. They fulfill regulatory functions, fight microorganisms and may be even helpful against predators. These peptides are considered to be rather promising pharmaceuticals of future generation as according to the present knowledge microorganisms are unlikely to develop resistance to them. Mass spectrometry sequencing of these peptides is the most efficient first step of their study providing reliably their primary structures, i.e., amino acids sequence and S-S bond motif. Besides discovering new bioactive peptides, mass spectrometry appears to be an efficient tool of taxonomy studies, allowing for distinguishing not only between closely related species, but also between populations of the same species. Application of several tandem mass spectrometry tools (CID, HCD, ETD, EThcD) available with Orbitrap mass analyzer allowed us to obtain full sequence of about 60 peptides in the secretion of Slovenian population of brown ranid frog
Rana temporaria
. The problem of sequence inside C-terminal cycle formed by two Cys and differentiation of isomeric Leu and Ile residues was done in top-down mode without any derivatization steps. Besides general biomarkers of
Rana temporaria
species, Central Slovenian population of
Rana temporaria
demonstrates six novel temporins and one brevinin 1, which may be treated as biomarkers of that population.