Membrane proteins are crucial targets for cancer biomarker discovery and drug development. However, in addition to the inherent challenges of hydrophobicity and low abundance, complete membrane proteome coverage of clinical specimen is usually hindered by the requirement of large amount of starting materials. Toward comprehensive membrane proteomic profiling for small amounts of samples (10 μg), we developed high-pH reverse phase (Hp-RP) combined with stop-and-go extraction tip (StageTip) technique, as a fast (∼15 min.), sensitive, reproducible, high-resolution and multiplexed fractionation method suitable for accurate quantification of the membrane proteome. This approach provided almost 2-fold enhanced detection of peptides encompassing transmembrane helix (TMH) domain, as compared with strong anion exchange (SAX) and strong cation exchange (SCX) StageTip techniques. Almost 5000 proteins (∼60% membrane proteins) can be identified in only 10 μg of membrane protein digests, showing the superior sensitivity of the Hp-RP StageTip approach. The method allowed up to 9- and 6-fold increase in the identification of unique hydrophobic and hydrophilic peptides, respectively. The Hp-RP StageTip method enabled in-depth membrane proteome profiling of 11 lung cancer cell lines harboring different EGFR mutation status, which resulted in the identification of 3983 annotated membrane proteins. This provides the largest collection of reference peptide spectral data for lung cancer membrane subproteome. Finally, relative quantification of membrane proteins between Gefitinib-resistant and -sensitive lung cancer cell lines revealed several up-regulated membrane proteins with key roles in lung cancer progression.

An unprecedented vanadyl(V) methoxide complex 4 derived from 3,5-dibromo-N-salicylidene-l-tert-leucinate enables highly enantioselective aerobic oxidations of alpha-hydroxyphosphonates at ambient temperature with selectivity factors ranging from 3 to >99.

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Among 18 oxometallic species, MoO2Cl2 was found to be the most reactive in catalytic thioglycosylation of O-acetylated glycosides with functionalized thiols in CH2Cl2, leading cleanly to 1,2-trans-thioglycosides with exclusive diastereocontrol. The new catalytic protocol is applicable to a monoglycoside building block and beta-(1-->6)-S-linked-thiodisaccharide synthesis. [reaction: see text].