This thesis describes the application of mass spectrometry (MS) to glycoprotein and oligosaccharide analysis. Glycosylated proteins are involved in cell-cell and cell-matrix recognition. Applications of trypsin and proteinase K to hydrolyze glycoproteins into glycopeptides that are compatible with MS and MS/MS analysis are investigated. For successful site-specific analysis of glycans, glycopeptides with short peptide (3-8 residues) are needed. Although trypsin is an important enzyme for protein identification, proteinase K is superior for site-specific glycan analysis due to its potential to hydrolyze every glycoprotein to short glycopeptides. The gas-phase dissociation pathways, kinetics and energetics of protonated oligosaccharides are described. The oligosaccharides dissociate via cleavage at the glycosidic linkages during thermal activation. Using double resonance experiments, it was established that oligosaccharides undergo sequential and parallel fragmentation reactions. Furthermore, dissociation of product ions to secondary ions was confirmed. Arrhenius activation parameters, Ea and A for protonated alpha- and beta-linked D-glucopyranose oligosaccharides are reported.

No description available.

No description available.

The factors affecting peptide fragmentation have been extensively studied in the literature in order to better predict the fragment ion spectra of peptides and proteins. While there are countless influences to consider, metal cation binding in the gas-phase is particularly interesting. Herein, a comparison of fragmentation patterns of a model peptide series with various charge carriers (H+, Li+, Na+, K+, and Cu+) will assist in determining the location of the preferred binding site of the metal cation and in assessing differences in the fragmentation pattern as a result of this binding site. An interesting observation from these studies reveals abundant x-type fragment ions occurring from the fragmentation of alkali-metal cationized peptides. As these fragment ions have been observed in previous studies by others but not addressed, the factors affecting the formation of these x-type fragment ions are explored. Additionally, a home-built 193-nm photodissociation tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometer is utilized to study how peptide fragmentation kinetics affect the fragmentation pattern observed. Initially, the fragmentation timescales of various peptides are investigated. Results indicate that longer fragmentation timescales (~10 microseconds) result in an increased number of identified peaks with internal and ammonia loss fragment ions being the most common in comparison to 'prompt' fragmentation timescales (~1 microsecond). Furthermore, b-type fragment ion formation is also favored at longer timescales for the arginine containing peptides investigated. The fragmentation pattern of several proline containing peptides is examined by collision-induced dissociation and 193-nm photodissociation. Unique fragment ions are observed with each occurring at a proline residue. Few differences are detected between CID and 193-nm photodissociation spectra, indicating that the proline residues direct fragmentation rather than the dissociation method. In an effort to improve the performance of the photodissociation tandem TOF instrument, the addition of a second source and a dual-stage reflectron are incorporated. The modifications result in improved mass range, signal-to-noise, and increased fragment ion collection efficiencies. High quality mass spectra are acquired across a range of mass-to-charge ratios from ~600 to 1900. Furthermore, the modifications continue to allow investigation of various fragmentation timescales with the addition of an additional timeframe of ~3 microseconds.

Die Massenspektrometrie stellt eine der bedeutendsten Techniken in der analytischen Chemie dar. Bislang können jedoch noch immer nicht alle Prozesse im Massenspektrometer vollständig erklärt werden. Um dazu einen Beitrag zu leisten, wurden DNA Oligonukleotide untersucht. Mit Hilfe der Ionenmobilitätsmassenspektrometrie wurde die räumliche Ausdehnung von Einzelstrang-DNA in Bezug auf ihr Ladungslevel und ihre Sequenz zur Feststellung der nötigen Fragmentationsenergie hin geprüft. So konnte ein sequenzunabhängiger Fragmentierungspunkt ermittelt werden, welcher ausschließlich vom Ladungslevel bestimmt wurde. Es zeigte sich ein linearer Anstieg der benötigten Energie bei zunehmender Ladung, wobei bei mittleren Ladungszuständen ein Sattelpunkt erreicht wurde. Durch IM-MS konnte dieser Bereich als geometrische Umfaltungszone bestätigt werden. Anschließend wurden die Produktfragmente aus unterschiedlichen kollisionsbasierten Fragmentierungstechniken verglichen, wobei sich herausstellte, dass einzelsträngige DNA aufgrund der komplexen und vielseitigen Dissoziationskanäle im Gegensatz zu anderen Stoffklassen große Unterschiede zwischen den Methoden auswies und daher als empfindlicher Sensor für geringfügige Unterschiede in der Fragmentationtechnik dienen kann. Des Weiteren wurden Doppelstränge verschiedenster Sequenzen mittels kollisionsinduzierter Dissoziation bezüglicher ihrer Zerfallswege untersucht. Dabei konnten spezifische Fragmentationsmuster ermittelt werden. Nachdem verschiedene etablierte Tandem-MS-Techniken angewendet wurden konnte abschließend eine neue Vakuumultraviolette Strahlung-basierte MS/MS-Methode entwickelt werden. Bei höher geladenen Ionen konnte eine Ladungsreduktion durch das Herausschlagen von Elektronen erreicht werden. Des Weiteren konnten die bereits bekannten Dissoziationspfade, wie beispielsweise in DNA, beobachtet werden. Außerdem konnten bei anderen Proben, wie z.B. ATP, ebenfalls neue Produktionen generiert werden. / Mass spectrometry represents one of the most important techniques in analytical chemistry today. So far, however, despite extensive use, not all processes in the mass spectrometer can be fully explained. In order to contribute to this, DNA oligonucleotides were investigated. Ion mobility was used to examine the spatial extent of single-stranded DNA in terms of its charge level and sequence in combination with a MS to determine the required fragmentation energies. Thus, structural changes of the ions can be detected. A sequence-independent fragmentation point could be determined, which was determined exclusively by the charge level. It showed a linear increase in the required energy with increasing charge, with a saddle point was present at intermediate charge states. By ion mobility spectrometry this area could be confirmed as a geometric refolding zone. Subsequently, the product ions from different collision-based fragmentation techniques were compared, and it was found that single-stranded DNA showed large differences between the methods due to the complex and versatile dissociation channels. Therefore, it could serve as a sensitive sensor for minor differences in fragmentation technique. Furthermore, double strands of different sequences were investigated by means of collision-induced dissociation with respect to their fragmentation pathways. Specific fragmentation patterns could be identified, which could be assigned to clear trends. After various established tandem MS techniques were used a new vacuum ultraviolet radiation -based MS/MS method was developed and tested. For this purpose, a commercially available deuterium lamp that has a short wavelength, installed in an ion trap MS. With higher charged ions, a charge reduction could be achieved by the ejection of electrons. Subsequently, the already known dissociation pathways could be observed. In addition, new product ions could also be generated for other samples, such as adenosine triphosphate.

In quantitative proteomics, many of the LC-MS based approaches employ stable isotopic labelling to provide relative quantitation of the proteome in different cell states. In a typical approach, peptides are first detected and identified by tandem MS scans prior to quantifying proteins. This provides the researcher with a large amount of data that are not useful for quantitation. It is desirable to improve the throughput of current approaches to make proteomics a more routine experiment with an enhanced capacity to detect differentially expressed proteins. This thesis reports the developments towards this goal, including an assessment of the viability of stable dimethyl labelling for comparative proteomic measurements and the evaluation of a dynamic algorithm called Parallel Isotopic Tag Screening (PITS) for the detection of isotopically labelled peptides for quantitative proteomics without the use of tandem MS scans.

No description available.

No description available.