title: Liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure electron capture dissociation mass spectrometry for the structural analysis of peptides and proteins.
abstract: Atmospheric pressure electron capture dissociation (AP-ECD) is an emerging technique with the potential to be a more accessible alternative to conventional ECD/electron transfer dissociation (ETD) methods because it can be implemented using a stand-alone ion source device suitable for use with any existing or future electrospray ionization mass spectrometer. With AP-ECD, no modification of the main instrument is required, so it may easily be retrofitted to instruments not originally equipped with ECD/ETD capabilities. Here, we present our first purpose-built AP-ECD source and demonstrate its use in conjunction with capillary LC for the analysis of substance P, a tryptic digest of bovine serum albumin, and a phosphopeptide mixture. Quality ECD spectra were obtained for all the samples at the low femtomole level, proving that LC-AP-ECD-MS is suitable for the structural analysis of peptides and protein digests, in this case using an unmodified quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer built ca. 2002.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z1. robb@chem.ubc.ca
authors.forename: Damon B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Robb
authors.forename: Jason C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Rogalski
authors.forename: Juergen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kast
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Blades
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001274:Atmospheric Pressure; D002417:Cattle; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000295:instrumentation; D004583:Electrons; D004867:Equipment Design; D057230:Limit of Detection; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010748:Phosphopeptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D012710:Serum Albumin, Bovine / Q000737:chemistry*; D013373:Substance P / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D010748:Phosphopeptides; D012710:Serum Albumin, Bovine; D013373:Substance P