Author:

Keywords:

neuropeptides, Caenorhabditis elegans, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Endocrinology & Metabolism, Pharmacology & Pharmacy, Neuropeptide, Peptidomics, Mass spectrometry, MALDI-TOF MS, flp, nlp, CENTRAL-NERVOUS-SYSTEM, APGWAMIDE-LIKE IMMUNOREACTIVITY, NEUROPEPTIDE GENE FAMILIES, DROSOPHILA-MELANOGASTER, MASS-SPECTROMETRY, LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY, LYMNAEA-STAGNALIS, ASCARIS-SUUM, OF-FLIGHT, IDENTIFICATION, Amino Acid Sequence, Animals, Caenorhabditis, Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid, Neuropeptides, Protein Precursors, Proteomics, Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization, 0304 Medicinal and Biomolecular Chemistry, 0606 Physiology, 1115 Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 3101 Biochemistry and cell biology, 3202 Clinical sciences, 3404 Medicinal and biomolecular chemistry

Abstract:

Neuropeptides are important signaling molecules that function in cell-cell communication as neurotransmitters or hormones to orchestrate a wide variety of physiological conditions and behaviors. These endogenous peptides can be monitored by high throughput peptidomics technologies from virtually any tissue or organism. The neuropeptide complement of the soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been characterized by on-line two-dimensional liquid chromatography and quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (2D-nanoLC Q-TOF MS/MS). Here, we use an alternative peptidomics approach combining liquid chromatography (LC) separation with matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry to map the peptide content of C. elegans and another Caenorhabditis species, Caenorhabditis briggsae. This study allows a better annotation of neuropeptide-encoding genes from the C. briggsae genome and provides a promising basis for further evolutionary comparisons.