Publications by authors named "J A Zaia"

Mass spectrometry-based investigation of the heterogeneous glycoproteome from complex biological specimens is a robust approach to mapping the structure, function, and dynamics of the glycome and proteome. Sampling whole wet tissues often provides a large amount of starting material; however, there is a reasonable variability in tissue handling prior to downstream processing steps, and it is difficult to capture all the different biomolecules from a specific region. The on-slide tissue digestion approach, outlined in this protocol chapter, is a simple and cost-effective method that allows comprehensive mapping of the glycoproteome from a single spot of tissue of 1 mm or greater diameter.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on a special group of genes called piRNAs that help female animals stay fertile by stopping bad DNA pieces known as transposons from becoming active.
  • Scientists experimented with parts of these genes to learn how they work and found that a protein called Traffic Jam helps control them.
  • By looking at the effects of reducing Traffic Jam, the researchers discovered that it not only affects the piRNAs but also helps prevent problems caused by the transposons.
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Accurate glycopeptide identification in mass spectrometry-based glycoproteomics is a challenging problem at scale. Recent innovation has been made in increasing the scope and accuracy of glycopeptide identifications, with more precise uncertainty estimates for each part of the structure. We present a dynamically adapting relative retention time model for detecting and correcting ambiguous glycan assignments that are difficult to detect from fragmentation alone, a layered approach to glycopeptide fragmentation modeling that improves N-glycopeptide identification in samples without compromising identification quality, and a site-specific method to increase the depth of the glycoproteome confidently identifiable even further.

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Ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) is a powerful analytical tool for structural characterization. IM measurement provides collision cross section (CCS) values that facilitate analyte identification. While CCS values can be directly calculated from mobility measurements obtained using drift tube ion mobility spectrometry (DT-IMS), this method has limited mobility resolution due to the practical constraints on the length of the ion drift path.

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Substance use disorder is a major concern, with few therapeutic options. Heparan sulfate (HS) and chondroitin sulfate (CS) interact with a plethora of growth factors and their receptors and have profound effects on cellular signaling. Thus, targeting these dynamic interactions might represent a potential novel therapeutic modality.

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