Supplementary Figure 1: Mass spectrometry characterization of epoxide reactions.

(a) Degree of amine reactivity of bovine serum albumin (BSA) with epoxide molecules having different numbers of epoxide groups: 1 (GME), 2 (EGDGE, 1,4-BDE, DGDE), 3 (TGE), 4 (PEGE), 5 (P3PE) and with paraformaldehyde (PFA) and glutaraldehyde (GA). N=3 independent experiments. Mean +/- standard error mean was used for this bar graph. (b-c) MALDI-TOF spectra of BSA (b) or GFP (c) reacted with GME and P3PE. Corresponding mass shifts indicate a total of ~92 GME or ~45 P3PE molecules crosslinked with BSA, implying that single covalently attached P3PE molecules bridges ~2 epoxide-reactive residues (b). A similar calculation shows that roughly 1.5 available epoxide-reactive GFP side-chains are bridged by P3PE (c). Mass peak values are indicated as numbers in kDa. (d, e) DNA oligos reacted with epoxides at the reaction conditions used for tissue processing (pH 10, 0.1 M sodium carbonate buffer). MALDI-TOF spectra of (dA)₁₅ (d) and (dC)₁₅ oligos (e) show mass shifts associated respectively with multiple GME or P3PE epoxide crosslinks, respectively. Peak broadening was observed for P3PE crosslinked oligos indicating the formation of abundant salt adducts with polydisperse P3PE.