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Formaldehyde Used as A Technical Crosslinking Tool May Change Cell Protein Patterns
Jiang Chuo1,3, Xie Liqi2, Liao Rijing3, Chen Fuxue1, Wu Jiaxi3*
1College of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China;
2Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China;
3Xuhui Central Hospital, Shanghai Clinical Research Center, Chinese Academy Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
2Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China;
3Xuhui Central Hospital, Shanghai Clinical Research Center, Chinese Academy Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
Abstract: Formaldehyde can reversibly crosslink protein-protein or protein-DNA molecules. As a result，it is widely used to study the molecular components of protein-protein or protein-DNA complexes. It is generally accepted that as a small molecule， formaldehyde， at the high concentrations that are typically used as a crosslinking tool， can rapidly permeate cross the cell membrane and instantaneously crosslink protein or DNA molecules before any cellular responses occur. However， it has not been reported whether high concentration formaldehyde may affect the proteome of a cell. If it does， a false positive or negative result may be obtained. In the present study， we have applied proteomic techniques to compare the proteomes between high concentration formaldehyde-treated and untreated control cells. The results have shown that high concentration formaldehyde can change the levels of a number of cellular proteins shortly following its permeation into the cells. Therefore， a formaldehyde-treated blank or repeated experiments are recommended for any experiment to exclude false positive or negative results when formaldehyde is technically used as a crosslinking tool.
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