Adaptation of SILAC to the quantitative analysis of pre-ribosomal complexes. (A) Schematics of the TAP-SILAC coupling for the quantitative analysis of protein composition changes. Two strains producing a TAP-tagged bait protein ‘X’, a wild type and a mutant expressing a glucose-repressible pre-ribosomal gene ‘Y’ are grown in glucose-containing minimal medium, either in presence of normal leucine, or in presence of deuterated leucine. X-TAP-associated complexes are purified by tandem affinity purification, then the wild type and mutant samples are mixed together and separated by SDS-PAGE. Specific protein bands are cut out from the gels and analysed by MALDI-TOF spectrometry. (B) The non-deuterated/deuterated ratio can be quantified for each identified peptide in a given protein, using the mass spectra. As an example, signals obtained with a peptide from protein ‘Z’, which accumulates in the mutant and a peptide from protein ‘W’, which is lost in complexes purified from the mutant strain were illustrated. (C) To test the performance of mass spectrometry quantification, total yeast protein extracts from cells grown in medium containing leucine or deuterated leucine were mixed in different ratios, with a percentage of deuterated proteins from 0% to 100%. After separation by SDS-PAGE, four bands at different molecular weights (range from 12–125 kDa) were recovered and proteins identified by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Several peptide signals were quantified in the different samples (8–14 values, depending on the spectra quality) and a box and whiskers plot for the measured values were represented in correlation with the expected percentage of deuterated leucine-containing peptides. Boxes represent the upper and lower quartile, the horizontal line, the median and the bars represent the maximum and minimum measured values.