title: Capillary electrophoresis to characterize ricin and its subunits with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry.
abstract: Capillary electrophoresis (CE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) have been employed as highly efficient methods to characterize ricin, its subunits, and the chemically deglycosylated forms. As a CE method, sodium dodecyl sulfate-capillary gel electrophoresis (SDS-CGE) was used because of its merit over the conventional slab gel techniques. SDS-CGE showed higher resolution capability over other analytical tools in the analysis of the ricin mixture as well as in each of its purified forms. The high resolution was considered to be a result of the presence of carbohydrates on ricin subunits, and this property was useful for identifying the native ricin or its A chain from their chemically deglycosylated forms. However, this method exhibited an overestimation of the molecular mass due to the carbohydrate moieties on ricin subunits, and the inaccuracies were observed to be dependent on the carbohydrate content of the subunits. The exact molecular masses were measured by MALDI-TOF MS, and the results were almost consistent with the expected values. This study clearly illustrates the usefulness and necessity of complementary use of two powerful analytical techniques to characterize ricin and its subunits in a various research fields such as poisoning and immunotoxin research.
authors.affiliation: Drug Targeting Laboratory, College of Pharmacy, SungKyunKwan University, 300 Chonchon-dong, Jangan-ku, Suwon City 440-746, South Korea.
authors.forename: Dong Hee
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Na
authors.forename: Cheong Kwan
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Yu Seok
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Youn
authors.forename: Youngju
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Kang Ro
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Sun Dong
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Yoo
authors.forename: Kang Choon
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002367:Ricinus communis; D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary; D000922:Immunotoxins / Q000737:chemistry*; D012276:Ricin / Q000737:chemistry*; D012967:Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate; D019032:Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization
chemical_list: D000922:Immunotoxins; D012967:Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate; D012276:Ricin