Mass spectrometry imaging of SOD1 protein-metal complexes in SOD1G93A transgenic mice implicates demetalation with pathology

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by degeneration of motor neurons in the central nervous system (CNS). Mutations in the metalloenzyme SOD1 are associated with inherited forms of ALS and cause a toxic gain of function thought to be mediated by dimer destabilization and misfolding. SOD1 binds two Cu and two Zn ions in its homodimeric form. We have applied native ambient mass spectrometry imaging to visualize the spatial distributions of intact metal-bound SOD1 G93A complexes in SOD1 G93A transgenic mouse spinal cord and brain sections and evaluated them against disease pathology. The molecular specificity of our approach reveals that metal-deficient SOD1 G93A species are abundant in CNS structures correlating with ALS pathology whereas fully metalated SOD1 G93A species are homogenously distributed. Monomer abundance did not correlate with pathology. We also show that the dimer-destabilizing post-translational modification, glutathionylation, has limited influence on the spatial distribution of SOD1 dimers. In this work, protein-metal complexes implicated in the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were mapped by mass spectrometry imaging. Metal-deficient hSOD1G93A complexes were revealed to be localised with disease pathology in the spinal cord and brain.