title: Cuttlefish sperm protamines. 2. Mass spectrometry of protamines and related peptides.
abstract: The sequence of very basic proteins such as protamines (more than 50% arginines) and related peptides has been determined using mass spectrometry in conjunction with Edman degradation. The capabilities of three mass spectrometric (MS) techniques [fast-atom-bombardment (FAB), 252Cf plasma desorption (252CFPD) and electrospray (ES)] have been evaluated on stallion protamine 1, cuttlefish protamine, and the corresponding cleavage peptides. In contrast to FAB-MS and 252Cf PD-MS, ES-MS made possible an easy determination of the molecular mass of the intact protamines (approximately 8 kDa). With ES-MS about 0.2 nmol was sufficient to yield a mass measurement with an accuracy of 0.05%. On peptides smaller than 3500 Da, both FAB-MS and 252Cf PD-MS allowed mass measurements with an accuracy of 0.1%. 252Cf PD-MS appeared more sensitive than FAB-MS by about a factor of 10. FAB-MS is nevertheless particularly interesting since in most cases it produced spectra with intense A-type fragmentation ions which provided reliable primary structure information.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Chimie Organique des Substances Naturelles, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique N.31, Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schindler
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bitsch
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Klarskov
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Roepstorff
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Briand
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wouters-Tyrou
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sautière
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van Dorsselaer
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D008297:Male; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D008974:Mollusca; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000737:chemistry; D011479:Protamines / Q000737:chemistry*; D016339:Spectrometry, Mass, Fast Atom Bombardment / Q000379:methods; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D010446:Peptide Fragments; D011479:Protamines