Analysis of Local Dynamics of Human Insulin and a Rapid-acting Insulin Analog by Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry

Human insulin, used by diabetics to regulate blood sugar, was first introduced as a recombinant therapeutic drug nearly 30 years ago. Human insulin and insulin lispro have identical primary structure, except for the transposition of two amino acids. Lispro is one of the rapid-acting insulin analogs, which has higher tendency to dissociate than human insulin. In this study, we present an analytical workflow to allow us to detect the difference in the oligomeric dynamics using Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX MS). The HDX analysis on Insulin and Lispro peptides was conducted to identify the location where different deuterium uptakes were observed between human insulin and lispro. The detected areas were illustrated in various formats to help understand their flexibility associated with rapid dissociation of insulin oligomers. Drug products, human insulin (Humulin R) and lispro (Humalog), were reduced and digested online by pepsin. Deuterium labeling, quenching, and injection to on-line pepsin digestion were prepared using a robotic sample manager. Labeling experiments in 0, 0.5, 5, 10, 60, and 180 min interval were duplicated for both samples. The peptic digests were separated on a UPLC system at 0 °C. Q-TOF MS was used to measure the deuterium incorporation of identified peptides. The amount of deuterium was determined by automated HDX data processing software, DynamX 2.0. We obtained 98% of sequence coverage for both human insulin and lispro. From peptide HDX determination, two regions were revealed distinctive different values in deuterium uptakes between human insulin and lispro; the N terminus of chain A, and a region adjacent to the C terminus of chain B. We attributed this localized behavior to the relation of hexamerization and dimerization, respectively. Furthermore, characteristic profiles that showed different deuteration margins between two insulins were determined, which was also consistent with their involvement in hexamer and dimer formation.