Sensitive Detection of Native Proteins Using Extractive Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry

摘要

Protein analysis provides abundant information crucial to understanding mechanisms and giving insight into life on the molecular level. Because of its unparalleled sensitivity and specificity, mass spectrometry is the premier method for protein analysis. The native protein conformation, key to understanding the structure and function of proteins, is difficult to determine by conventional electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) owing to multiple steps required for matrix cleanup. The charge state distribution (CSD) of protein ions recorded using ESI-MS provides a highly sensitive tool to probe the overall compactness of a protein in solution, and thus it is being used increasingly to gauge protein conformations.