title: Carboxy-terminal degradation of peptides using perfluoroacyl anhydrides. A C-terminal sequencing method.
abstract: An accurate carboxy-terminal sequencing method has long been sought to complement the Edman degradation procedure for amino-terminal amino acid sequence analysis. The method presented here is a unique and simple method to partly fulfill the needs. Exposure of a polypeptide to perfluoroacyl anhydride vapor at -20 degrees C for 0.5-1 h causes sequential chemical degradation of the molecule from the C-terminus. Fast-atom-bombardment mass spectrometric analysis of the resultant mixture of C-terminally truncated molecules permits the determination of the C-terminal sequence by simple calculation of the mass differences in molecular ions. Experiments suggested that this C-terminal degradation proceeds by active intermediates such as oxazolone at the C-terminal carboxyl residues.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Biosciences, Science University of Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takamoto
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kamo
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kubota
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Satake
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tsugita
mesh_terms: D000089:Acetic Anhydrides; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D005463:Fluoroacetates; D005466:Fluorocarbons; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data
chemical_list: D000089:Acetic Anhydrides; D005463:Fluoroacetates; D005466:Fluorocarbons; C068048:pentafluoropropionic anhydride; C007924:heptafluorobutyric anhydride; C017958:trifluoroacetic anhydride