The goal of my thesis was to find out whether it is possible to distinguish among individual dog breeds from the protein analysis of their fur. This knowledge could be used, for example, in forensic science. In this work, there was also a comparison of the similarity of dog breeds with a wolf, which was domesticated and is considered as an ancestor of the dog. For this study, the hair of three representatives of sixteen dog breeds was collected. To analyse these samples enzyme cleavage was used a trypsin, and mass spectra were obtained by MALDI- TOF MS (Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization - Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry) and LC/MS-MS (Liquid Chromatography with Tandem Mass Spectrometry) methods. The obtained data were evaluated by the PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and LDA (Linear Discriminant Analysis) method. It was found, that individual dog breeds cannot be distinguished using both methods. KEYWORDS proteomics, coat, dog, breeds, mass spectrometry

Tato práce je zaměřena jak na cílený tak na přehledný přístup ve studiu proteomiky. Cílená proteomika přináší informace o přítomnosti proteinu a jeho lokalizaci v buňce či tkáni pomocí luminiscenčních značek na bázi kvantových teček, zatímco přehledná proteomika se zabývá identifikací změn v proteomu dvou nebo více jedinců stejného druhu vystavených různým podmínkám. Protože proteomika vyžaduje vysoce citlivé separační a identifikační techniky, byly v této práci ověřeny různé metody zlepšení citlivosti kapilární elektroforézy s hmotnostní detekcí. Použití rozhraní s kapalinovým spojem pro spojení těchto dvou technik, které zajišťuje vyšší citlivost analýz, bylo také ověřeno analýzou metabolitů etanolu a kokainu v lidské moči. Zavedené techniky instrumentace jsou využitelné při posouzení vlivu významných faktorů životního prostředí na živé systémy jak na buněčné tak na molekulární úrovni.

Cancers represent a group of unprecedented heterogeneous diseases and currently available anti-cancer therapies provide highly variable efficacy with unsatisfactory cure rates. A wide range of proteomic technologies are being used in quest for newer approaches which could significantly contribute to the discovery and development of selective and specific cancer biomarkers for monitoring the disease state and anti-cancer therapy success. Taking into consideration the above aspects, this research was undertaken to study cancer cell proteomes and their changes after anti-cancer treatment with specific focus on: (a) response to conventional anthracycline/anthracenedione drugs with respect to their different clinical efficacy and (b) identification of novel targets for therapy in cancer cells resistant to biological drugs such as inhibitors of (b1) cyclin-dependent kinases and (b2) Aurora kinases. This study identified several interesting key aspects related to the effects of daunorubicin, doxorubicin and mitoxantrone. With the main focus on early time intervals when the influence of apoptosis is minimised, changes common for all three drugs belonging mainly to metabolic and cellular processes were observed. More importantly, significant changes in proteins involved in the generation of precursor...

Accurate, timely replication of a DNA molecule is a pivotal moment in the life cycle of every living organism. Any temporal or spatial defect putting the fine-tuned replication machinery off balance causes the so-called replication stress. As the replication machinery consists mainly of enzymes and other proteins, it is not surprising that many of the obstacles most severely blocking the replication machinery progress are of protein origin. Therefore, specialized proteases responsible for relieving replication stress matured during evolution. However, neither the full repertoire of proteolytic enzymes and their particular substrates taking place in countering the DNA replication stress nor detailed molecular mechanisms involved remain unknown. This thesis describes how conserved putative aspartic proteases of the Ddi1-like family engage in countering DNA replication stress via a proteolysis dependent mechanism. We structurally and biophysically characterized yeast and human members of the Ddi1-like family, explored their interactions with ubiquitin and polyubiquitin chains, and identified hypersensitivity to DNA replication inhibitor hydroxyurea in a yeast strain double deleted for DDI1 gene together with a DNA dependent metalloprotease WSS1. Detailed analysis of the DDI1 role in hydroxyurea...

Regulated intramembrane proteolysis is an interesting process involved in a multitude of cellular pathways. Enzymes which catalyse this are termed intramembrane proteases (IMPRs), cleaving proteins passing through the membrane within their transmembrane domain. Rhomboid proteases are serine IMPRs. They are widely distributed among organisms and evolutionarily conserved, but despite many efforts, their physiological roles are largely unexplored. RHBDL4 is a mammalian rhomboid protease localised to the endoplasmic reticulum. It is involved in the development of colorectal cancer, which makes it an important focus of research, but its physiological function is not well understood. In order to explore it, I established and employed a proximity proteomics approach, termed APEX2. It is based on biotinylation of proteins in the spatial proximity of the target in the physiological environment of intact living cells. Labelled proteins are subsequently purified, identified and quantified by mass spectrometry. Exploring the physiological vicinity of RHBDL4, its interaction partners and substrates can be revealed and the detailed subcellular compartment, where RHBDL4 resides, can thus be inferred. During three independent experiments in HCT116 cell line, three proteins emerged repeatedly in the RHBDL4...

English Abstract The incoming paradigm of the network (or systems) biology calls for a new high throughput tool for a wide scale study of protein-protein interactions. Mass spectrometry-based proteomics have experienced a great progress in recent years and have become an indispensable technology of elementary as well as clinical research. Glutamate carboxypeptidase II (GCPII; EC 3.5.17.21) is a transmembrane protein with two known enzymatic activities. Its expression is highly upregulated in some solid tumors and also in tumor-associated neovasculature in general. Nevertheless, none of the two enzymatic activities were shown to be physiologically relevant to these cells. Some facts point at a possible receptor function of GCPII, however, no specific binding partner has been found yet. In the search for potential binding partners and/or ligands of GCPII, a series of methods have been employed, including pull-down experiment, immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry. Sample preparation and mass spectrometry data processing methodology was specifically developed in order to identify potential binding partners. As one of the outcome of that methodology, the interaction of β-subunit of F1 ATP synthase was selected for further detailed analysis as a putative ligand of GCPII.

Proteomics as a modern comprehensive approach to the analysis of proteomes was applied in three projects aimed at diagnosis and therapy of cancer. The aim of the first the project was to find a new diagnostic biomarker for ovarian cancer. Two different comparative proteomic approaches were used for comparative analysis of sera from patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer and from healthy age-matched women. We identified -1-antitrypsin with increased concentration in patien sera, and apolipoprotein A4 and retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) with significantly decreased concentration in patients. The significantly decerased concentration of RBP4 in patients is a new observation. We propose that RBP4 is either decreased in ovarian cancer patients as a result of its reduced production by ovary or it may reflect less specific systemic changes, for instance early onset of cancer cachexia. The second project was focused on gaining insight into the molecular mechanism of cytarabine resistance in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). Proteomic and transcriptomic analyses of cytarabine-resistant cells revealed marked downregulation of deoxycytidine kinase (DCK) - a protein essential to intracellular activation of purine and pyrimidine nucleosides and their analogues including cytarabine. The cytarabine-resistant MCL...

In the works presented here, we studied molecular changes associated with drug resistance in human mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) cells using proteomics. Our analyses allowed us to identify causal and/or secondary changes in protein expression associated with the development of resistance to the experimental drug TRAIL and the clinically used antimetabolites cytarabine and fludarabine. Resistance of MCL cells to the recombinant proapoptotic cytokine TRAIL was associated with downregulation of key enzymes of purine metabolism. This pathway potentially represents a molecular "weakness", which could be used as a therapeutic target for selective elimination of such resistant cells. Resistance to the pyrimidine analog drug cytarabine was associated with cross-resistance to other antinucleosides. Proteomic and transcriptomic analyses showed pronounced downregulation of deoxycytidine kinase (dCK), which activates both purine and pyrimidine antinucleosides. This change explains the cross-resistance and is the causal mechanism of resistance to cytarabine. Our observations suggest that MCL patients, who do not respond to cytarabine-based therapy, should be treated with non-nucleoside drugs. MCL cells resistant to purine-derived antinucleoside fludarabine were cross-resistant to all tested antinucleosides and...

Drought is one of the most important stress factors affecting plants. Increasing drought resistance via plant breeding is currently the main approach for improvement of plant productivity and reduction of water usage. Plant breeders and scientists search for reliable and easy methods of the determination of drought sensitivity in different genotypes. A precise knowledge about processes underlying plant stress response and defence against limited water availability is necessary for this. The aim of this study was a detailed analysis of photosynthetic processes and changes in leaf proteome (again aimed especially at proteins involved in photosynthesis) during drought stress. This analysis was a part of a complex project focused on the possible causes of genetic variability and drought resistance in agronomically important crops. Another goal was to analyse whether the measurement of selected photosynthetic parameters can be used for the determination of drought sensitivity per se and/or for the prediction of the response of hybrids based on known behaviour of their parents. Young plants of maize inbred lines and their hybrids were used as a model for this analysis, which was made under conditions of moderate and more severe drought. Two inbred lines which were (together with their F1 hybrids) used...

- Ph.D. thesis - Milan Urban, 2017 In some years, the agricultural production of oilseed rape, an important crop in the Czech Republic, is - besides biotic stress - facing the problem of damage caused by frost or drought. Together with special attention paid to proteins revealing responses between crop genotypes with differential abiotic stress tolerance levels we reviewed possible applications of proteomic results in crop breeding programs aimed at an improvement of crop stress tolerance (paper 1). For first original result, cold temperature was imposed upon non-vernalized plants in the stage of leaf rosette. The article (paper 2) shows a significant correlation between frost tolerance (FT), dehydrin (DHN) accumulation, and photosynthetic acclimation in five cultivars (cvs). Newly, the specific DHN D97 was shown to accumulate and other DHNs were shown to have qualitative differences in accumulation. These results imply that proper FT assessment is based on rapid photosynthetic acclimation together with higher accumulation of protective compounds. Drought stress (paper 3) was imposed in the water- demanding stem prolongation phase before flowering, because late-spring drought before and during flowering decreases the yield and seed quality significantly. This paper newly describes two water-uptake...