11); third, solute interactions. To reduce the dimensionality of the model, we allowed an increase in L to include solute interactions ( Suppl. Section 2.12). We combined these effects by allowing σ and L to vary, modeled in Fig. 2c, and fitted multiple peaks to each dataset ( Suppl. Section 2.13). Overlapping peaks in our results could represent TCEP; non-helical peptide; N- to C-terminal cyclic cross-linked non-helical peptide monomer; cross-linked non-helical peptide dimers; cross-linked cyclic dimeric peptide; peptide triple helix; cross-linked triple helix dimers; small groups of (∼3–5) cross-linked triple helices; and larger groups of (6+) cross-linked triple helices. The last four classes are heterogeneous

NVP-BEZ235 research buy and could not be fully resolved, so it was decided to fit a peak representing a variety of molecule sizes, for instance, grouping all 3–5 helix aggregates under one fitted peak. The deconvolution was used to present data giving the percentages of peptide in each peptide form (Fig. 3, Fig. 4 and Fig. 5). Peptide samples were desalted by adsorbing to a preconditioned

μC18 Ziptip (Millipore). For electrospray, they were eluted with 70% MeOH/0.2% formic acid, and delivered to the mass spectrometer by direct infusion at 4 μL min−1 using 70% MeOH/0.2% formic acid as mobile phase, with a capillary temperature of 80 °C. Internal calibration data was also collected using either ubiquitin or myoglobin. For MALDI (Waters MicroMX), they were washed with 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid and eluted with matrix solution, mixed with ferulic acid matrix (10 mg mL−1 www.selleckchem.com/TGF-beta.html in 50% acetonitrile, 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid), dried and washed with 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid. To confirm

the redox state of peptide samples and next a TCEP-reduced negative control, peptides were alkylated using 120 mM iodoacetamide (Sigma I6125), pH 8, for 30 min at room temperature before analysis [31]. Blood from healthy volunteers was collected into 40 μM d-phe-pro-arg-chloromethylketone (PPACK, Cambridge Bioscience, UK), and supplemented hourly with 10 μM PPACK. It was incubated with 1 μM 3,3′-dihexyloxacarbocyanine iodide (DIOC6, Sigma–Aldrich, UK) for 15 min before use. Acid-cleaned coverslips (Menzel-Glazer, Germany) were washed in a solution of 1 M HCl in 50% ethanol, followed by two washes with 300 mM NaCl and a final wash with water. Base-treated coverslips were washed finally with 1 M NaOH. These coverslips were incubated with a mixture of two peptides (100 μg mL−1 each) in a humidity chamber overnight. The peptide mixture was either CRPcys and GFOGERcys or the cysteine-lacking CRP and GFOGER (Table 1). After removal of excess fluid, coverslips were blocked with 1% BSA in HEPES buffer (36 mM NaCl, 2.7 mM KCl, 5 mM HEPES, 10 mM glucose, 2 mM MgCl2, 2 mM CaCl2, pH 7.4) for 15 min. Individual coverslips were loaded into a 125 μm deep flow chamber mounted on an FV300 laser-scanning confocal microscope (Olympus, UK) and washed for 1 min with HEPES buffer.