Proteomic analysis of plasma after branched chain enriched mixture supplementation in mice

Background: branched chain amino acid (bcaa) supplementation is a recently identified strategy to promote longevity in mice. a proteomic approach was used to identify proteins which are differentially expressed in the sera of mice following supplementation with selected branched chain amino acid enriched mixture (bcaaem). findings: 12 male mice (c57bl6,9 months-old) were randomly assigned to unsupplemented (control,n = 6) and supplemented (bcaa,n = 6,0.1 mg/gr/day in drink water for 4 weeks). at the end of treatment total plasma samples from control and bcaaem mice were separated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-de). after staining,the gels were imaged and differential protein expression patterns were interrogated using image analysis software. spots showing a different expression level were identified through a comparison with 2d maps found in databases officially recognized (expasy). master gels of control and bcaa mice exhibited slightly different 2-de patterns as only 10 spots out of 500 appeared differentially expressed: 8 were upregulated (corresponding to apolipoprotein a-i (apoa1),complement factor b,complement c3,immunoglobulin light chain) and 2 appeared downregulated (alpha-1-antitrypsin and unknown). conclusions: supplementation with bcaaem in mice results in a slight perturbation of the host serum proteome. of particular interest is the increased apolipoprotein a-i (apoai) following treatment. © 2013 brocca et al.; licensee biomed central ltd.