Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange: Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry for Probing Structural Changes in Proteins upon Microwave Irradiation

摘要

Over the last decade, microwave-assisted chemistry has matured into a highly useful technique; it now provides a useful alternative to chemical reactions conducted by heating in the traditional mode. In recent years microwave irradiation has been shown to accelerate organic reactions. Thus, the reactions that require several hours under conventional conditions can be completed in a few minutes. Chemists commonly use this technique to accelerate thermal reactions or to control kinetics of synthesis. The use of microwave in the area of peptide biochemistry has been very limited so far. We have demonstrated for the first time the use of microwave irradiation to accelerate the enzymatic digestion of proteins, Protein Science 11: 2676, 2002. Our work clearly demonstrated the power of microwave irradiation in the field of enzymatic digestion. We have devised a new approach to the acceleration of peptide mapping by the combined application of microwave and mass spectrometry. However, the effect of microwave on the tertiary structure of protein has not been studied; therefore, it is very interesting and important to probe the effects of microwave irradiation on conformational changes in protein.