Capillary Zone Electrophoresis-Mass Spectrometry of Peptides and Proteins

摘要

Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) is attracting extensive attention as a fast, high resolution analytical and micro-preparative separations technique for systems of biological interest. In zone electrophoresis, a column is filled with a single electrolyte having a specific conductivity. The mixture of substances to be separated is applied as a narrow band to the head of a buffer filled column in a band whose width is much less than the length of the column and at a concentration too low to affect the buffer conductivity. An electric field is then applied across the length of the column and the individual substances migrate and separate according to their net electrophoretic velocities. Zone electrophoresis carried out in small diameter (<100 micro m) fused silica capillaries is a relatively new approach to the high resolution separation of aqueous samples. Very small volume samples (picoliter range) with separation efficiencies on the order of 10 sup 6 theoretical plates for amino acids have been achieved. The method can be further enhanced by the dynamic combination of detection sensitivity and selectivity offered by mass spectrometry (MS). The on-line marriage of mass spectrometry to CZE is accomplished by an atmospheric pressure electrospray ionization source interface. Our research efforts have demonstrated that proteins with MW's greater than 100 kDa can be analyzed using a conventional quadrupole mass spectrometer with an upper m/z limit of only 1700. 6 refs.