Molecular Mass Determination (molecular + mass_determination)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Molecular mass determination of plasma-derived glycoproteins by ultraviolet matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry with internal calibration

JOURNAL OF MASS SPECTROMETRY (INCORP BIOLOGICAL MASS SPECTROMETRY), Issue 11 2002
Omar Belgacem
Abstract Human plasma-derived antithrombin III (AT-III), factor IX (FIX) and vitronectin (VN) were characterized as native glycoproteins and in their de- N -glycosylated form by means of MALDI mass spectrometry. The average molecular masses of the three complex glycoproteins were determined applying internal calibration with high-mass, well-defined protein calibrants. Internal calibration generated for the 47 kDa yeast protein enolase a mass precision in the continuous and delayed extraction mode of ±0.12 and ±0.022%, respectively. The achievable mass accuracy for such a high-mass, unmodified protein was in the range of 0.02% in the continuous mode, which turned out to be better than in the delayed extraction mode. Purification of all (glyco) proteins (even the calibration proteins) by means of ZipTip® technology and direct elution with a solvent system containing the appropriate MALDI matrix turned out to be a prerequisite to measure the exact molecular masses with an internal calibration. The average molecular masses of the two different forms of AT-III, namely AT-III, and AT-III,, were shown to be 57.26 and 55.04 kDa, respectively. The 2.22 kDa mass difference is attributed to the known difference in carbohydrate content at one specific site (Asn-135). After exhaustive de- N -glycosylation (by means of PNGase F) of the ,- and ,-form and subsequent MALDI-MS analysis, average molecular masses of 48.96 and 48.97 kDa, respectively, were obtained. These values are in good agreement (,0.15%) with the calculated molecular mass (49.039 kDa) of the protein part based on SwissProt data. The molecular mass of the heavily post-translational modified glycoprotein FIX was found to be 53.75 kDa with a peak width at 10% peak height of 4.5 kDa, because of the presence of many different posttranslational modifications (N - and O -glycosylation at multiple sites, sulfation, phosphorylation, hydroxylation and numerous ,-carboxyglutamic acids). MALDI-MS molecular mass determination of the native, size-exclusion chromatography-purified, VN sample revealed that the glycoprotein was present as dimer with molecular mass of 117.74 kDa, which could be corroborated by non-reducing SDS-PAGE. After sample treatment with guanidine hydrochloride and mass spectrometric analysis, a single, new main component was detected. The molecular mass turned out to be 59.45 kDa, representing the monomeric form of VN, known as V75. The determined molecular mass value was shown to be on one hand lower than from SDS-PAGE and on the other higher than the calculated amino acid sequence molecular mass (52 277 Da), pointing to the well-known SDS-PAGE bias and to considerable post-translational modifications. Further treatment of the sample with a reducing agent and subsequent MALDI-MS revealed two new components with molecular masses of 49.85 and 9.41 kDa, corresponding to V65 and V10 subunits of VN. PNGase F digest of the V75 and V65 units and MS analysis, exhibiting a molecular mass reduction of 6.37 kDa in both cases, verified the presence of a considerable amount of N -glycans. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Characterization of glyco isoforms in plasmaderived human antithrombin by on-line capillary zone electrophoresis-electrospray ionization-quadrupole ion trap-mass spectrometry of the intact glycoproteins

ELECTROPHORESIS, Issue 13 2004
Uwe M. Demelbauer
Abstract The carbohydrate structures of five isoforms of ,-AT and two isoforms of ,-AT were determined by applying capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) on-line coupled to electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) using an ion-trap analyzer. For the AT preparations gained from a plasma pool at least semiquantitative information on the isoform-distributions could be gained. Unlike to the commonly used approaches starting from enzymatically treated glycoproteins, this approach deals with intact proteins. The high accuracy of the molecular mass determination obtained by the ion-trap analyzer allows one to calculate and ascertain the carbohydrate composition assuming no variations in the protein moiety of AT and to exclude or confirm the presence of the potential post-translational or other modifications. Therefore, the direct coupling of CZE with ESI-MS does not only represent a fast alternative technique to two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) but serves as a method which provides structural information complementary to that gained from peptide mapping methods. [source]


Molecular mass determination of plasma-derived glycoproteins by ultraviolet matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry with internal calibration

JOURNAL OF MASS SPECTROMETRY (INCORP BIOLOGICAL MASS SPECTROMETRY), Issue 11 2002
Omar Belgacem
Abstract Human plasma-derived antithrombin III (AT-III), factor IX (FIX) and vitronectin (VN) were characterized as native glycoproteins and in their de- N -glycosylated form by means of MALDI mass spectrometry. The average molecular masses of the three complex glycoproteins were determined applying internal calibration with high-mass, well-defined protein calibrants. Internal calibration generated for the 47 kDa yeast protein enolase a mass precision in the continuous and delayed extraction mode of ±0.12 and ±0.022%, respectively. The achievable mass accuracy for such a high-mass, unmodified protein was in the range of 0.02% in the continuous mode, which turned out to be better than in the delayed extraction mode. Purification of all (glyco) proteins (even the calibration proteins) by means of ZipTip® technology and direct elution with a solvent system containing the appropriate MALDI matrix turned out to be a prerequisite to measure the exact molecular masses with an internal calibration. The average molecular masses of the two different forms of AT-III, namely AT-III, and AT-III,, were shown to be 57.26 and 55.04 kDa, respectively. The 2.22 kDa mass difference is attributed to the known difference in carbohydrate content at one specific site (Asn-135). After exhaustive de- N -glycosylation (by means of PNGase F) of the ,- and ,-form and subsequent MALDI-MS analysis, average molecular masses of 48.96 and 48.97 kDa, respectively, were obtained. These values are in good agreement (,0.15%) with the calculated molecular mass (49.039 kDa) of the protein part based on SwissProt data. The molecular mass of the heavily post-translational modified glycoprotein FIX was found to be 53.75 kDa with a peak width at 10% peak height of 4.5 kDa, because of the presence of many different posttranslational modifications (N - and O -glycosylation at multiple sites, sulfation, phosphorylation, hydroxylation and numerous ,-carboxyglutamic acids). MALDI-MS molecular mass determination of the native, size-exclusion chromatography-purified, VN sample revealed that the glycoprotein was present as dimer with molecular mass of 117.74 kDa, which could be corroborated by non-reducing SDS-PAGE. After sample treatment with guanidine hydrochloride and mass spectrometric analysis, a single, new main component was detected. The molecular mass turned out to be 59.45 kDa, representing the monomeric form of VN, known as V75. The determined molecular mass value was shown to be on one hand lower than from SDS-PAGE and on the other higher than the calculated amino acid sequence molecular mass (52 277 Da), pointing to the well-known SDS-PAGE bias and to considerable post-translational modifications. Further treatment of the sample with a reducing agent and subsequent MALDI-MS revealed two new components with molecular masses of 49.85 and 9.41 kDa, corresponding to V65 and V10 subunits of VN. PNGase F digest of the V75 and V65 units and MS analysis, exhibiting a molecular mass reduction of 6.37 kDa in both cases, verified the presence of a considerable amount of N -glycans. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Negative and positive ion matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry and positive ion nano-electrospray ionization quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometry of peptidoglycan fragments isolated from various Bacillus species

JOURNAL OF MASS SPECTROMETRY (INCORP BIOLOGICAL MASS SPECTROMETRY), Issue 2 2001
Gerold Bacher
Abstract A general approach for the detailed characterization of sodium borohydride-reduced peptidoglycan fragments (syn. muropeptides), produced by muramidase digestion of the purified sacculus isolated from Bacillus subtilis (vegetative cell form of the wild type and a dacA mutant) and Bacillus megaterium (endospore form), is outlined based on UV matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) and nano-electrospray ionization (nESI) quadrupole ion trap (QIT) mass spectrometry (MS). After enzymatic digestion and reduction of the resulting muropeptides, the complex glycopeptide mixture was separated and fractionated by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. Prior to mass spectrometric analysis, the muropeptide samples were subjected to a desalting step and an aliquot was taken for amino acid analysis. Initial molecular mass determination of these peptidoglycan fragments (ranging from monomeric to tetrameric muropeptides) was performed by positive and negative ion MALDI-MS using the thin-layer technique with the matrix ,-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamic acid. The results demonstrated that for the fast molecular mass determination of large sample numbers in the 0.8,10 pmol range and with a mass accuracy of ±0.07%, negative ion MALDI-MS in the linear TOF mode is the method of choice. After this kind of muropeptide screening often a detailed primary structural analysis is required owing to ambiguous data. Structural data could be obtained from peptidoglycan monomers by post-source decay (PSD) fragment ion analysis, but not from dimers or higher oligomers and not with the necessary sensitivity. Multistage collision-induced dissociation (CID) experiments performed on an nESI-QIT instrument were found to be the superior method for structural characterization of not only monomeric but also of dimeric and trimeric muropeptides. Up to MS4 experiments were sometimes necessary to obtain unambiguous structural information. Three examples are presented: (a) CID MSn (n = 2,4) of a peptidoglycan monomer (disaccharide-tripeptide) isolated from B. subtilis (wild type, vegetative cell form), (b) CID MSn (n = 2,4) of a peptidoglycan dimer (bis-disaccharide-tetrapentapeptide) obtained from a B. subtilis mutant (vegetative cell form) and (c) CID MS2 of a peptidoglycan trimer (a linear hexasaccharide with two peptide side chains) isolated from the spore cortex of B. megaterium. All MSn experiments were performed on singly charged precursor ions and the MS2 spectra were dominated by fragments derived from interglycosidic bond cleavages. MS3 and MS4 spectra exhibited mainly peptide moiety fragment ions. In case of the bis-disaccharide-tetrapentapeptide, the peptide branching point could be determined based on MS3 and MS4 spectra. The results demonstrate the utility of nESI-QIT-MS towards the facile determination of the glycan sequence, the peptide linkage and the peptide sequence and branching of purified muropeptides (monomeric up to trimeric forms). The wealth of structural information generated by nESI-QIT-MSn is unsurpassed by any other individual technique. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Quality control of protein standards for molecular mass determinations by small-angle X-ray scattering

JOURNAL OF APPLIED CRYSTALLOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2010
Shuji Akiyama
Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is a powerful technique with which to evaluate the size and shape of biological macromolecules in solution. Forward scattering intensity normalized relative to the particle concentration, I(0)/c, is useful as a good measure of molecular mass. A general method for deducing the molecular mass from SAXS data is to determine the ratio of I(0)/c of a target protein to that of a standard protein with known molecular mass. The accuracy of this interprotein calibration is affected considerably by the monodispersity of the prepared standard, as well as by the precision in estimating its concentration. In the present study, chromatographic fractionation followed by hydrodynamic characterization is proposed as an effective procedure by which to prepare a series of monodispersed protein standards. The estimation of molecular mass within an average deviation of 8% is demonstrated using monodispersed bovine serum albumin as a standard. The present results demonstrate the importance of protein standard quality control in order to take full advantage of interprotein calibration. [source]