Proteomic analysis of elongated alpaca embryos

XIMENA A. CASTRO GONZALEZ; APICHELA, SILVANA A.; MARTIN E. ARGAÑARAZ

Conferencia; 3rd Women in Bioinformatics & Data Science. LA Conference Fostering collaboration among women; 2022

Proteomic analysis of elongated alpaca embryosXimena Aixa Castro 1, Silvana Apichela1,3, Martín Eduardo Argañaraz 1,21. Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas (INSIBIO), CONICET, Argentina.2. Facultad de Bioquímica, Química y Farmacia, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán,Argentina.3. Facultad de Agronomía y Zootecnia, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina.Corresponding author e-mail address: xime.aixa.5@gmail.comSouth American camelids (SAC) are an important economic resource and cultural heritage forthe high Andean populations. One striking reproductive feature in SAC is that 98% ofgestations occur in the left uterine horn. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize theembryo proteome to unravel the molecular basis of the maternal-embryo dialogue that leadsto this particular implantation.Four alpaca 15-day embryos were pooled in two groups. Total proteins of each pool wereisolated, fractionated in SDS-PAGE, and analyzed by liquid chromatography with tandemmass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The spectra were analyzed with Proteome-DiscovererTMsoftware for protein identification, and Blast2GO and InterProScan tools for theircategorization.A total of 519 proteins, with at least two detected peptides, were identified. The main biologicalprocesses were classified into metabolism (353 proteins), biological regulation (268),response to stimulus (220), localization (188), development (176), signaling (127), andimmune system (78) processes. The main molecular functions were tagged as binding (404),catalytic activity (239), and structural molecule activity (108) proteins. Regarding the celllocation, most of the proteins were localized in the cytoplasm (413), in association with themembrane (267), or the endomembrane system (165).High and low protein abundance groups were identified based on the quantile densitydistribution of the exponentially modified protein abundance index (emPAI). Proteins in the top20% quantile (upper) or the bottom 20% (lower) from the abundance values were categorizedinto high-abundance and low-abundance groups, respectively, and submitted to GO-Enrichment analysis. The main annotations in the high-abundance group were intermediatefilaments, polymeric cytoskeletal fiber, structural molecule activity, and apoptotic regulation.Whereas, no enriched GO IDs were found for the low-abundance group.This work provides the first proteomic profile and functional in-silico analysis of pre-implantation alpaca embryos, laying the foundations to better understand the maternal-embryo dialogue in SAC.