Brevetoxins are natural neurotoxins that are produced by “red tide” algae. In this study, brevetoxin-1 and brevetoxin-2 were incubated with rat liver hepatocytes and rat liver microsomes, respectively. After clean-up steps, samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometry (LC-ES-MS). Two metabolites were found for brevetoxin-1: brevetoxin-1-M1 (MW 900 Da), formed by converting one double bond in the E or F ring into a diol; and brevetoxin-1-M2 (MW 884 Da), a hydrolysis product of brevetoxin-1 involving opening of the lactone ring. The incubation study of brevetoxin-2 found two metabolites. Brevetoxin-2-M1 (MW 912 Da) was elucidated by negative mode LC-MS/MS to be the hydrolysis product of brevetoxin-2. The second metabolite (brevetoxin-2-M2, MW 896 Da) was deduced to be brevetoxin-3. All brevetoxins have high affinities for sodium ions. Attempts to obtain informative product ions from the collision induced decomposition (CID) of [M + Na]+ brevetoxin precursor ions only resulted in uninformative sodium ion signals. In our nano-electrospray experiments, the addition of ammonium fluoride resulted in the formation of the ammonium adduct or protonated brevetoxin with a concomitant decrease of the sodium adduct peak. Product ion spectra of [M + NH4]+ and [M + H]+ were similar and provided useful structural information. The optimal values for ammonium fluoride concentration and the cone voltage were experimentally determined. In negative mode electrospray, without additives, deprotonated molecules of brevetoxins do not appear in high abundances, and thus are not well-suited for CID experiments. Several anions were tested for their abilities to form brevetoxin-anion adducts by mixing ammonium salts of these anions with brevetoxin-2 and brevetoxin-3. Under CID, [M + Cl]-, [M + Br]-, [M + OAc]-, [M + HCOO]-, [M + NO3]- adducts all produced only the respective anions in CID experiments, and thus, gave no structural information. In contrast, upon CID, both [M + F]- and [M + HCO3]- precursor adducts gave structurally-informative fragment peaks that exhibited similarities to those of [M - H]- ions; the detailed fragmentation mechanisms are discussed. In comparison, fluoride is a better choice to study brevetoxins in negative ES-MS by the anionic adduct approach.

In this thesis, the application of electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) to the analysis of intact proteins is demonstrated. In papers I and II, the use of ESI-MS for the analysis of noncovalent protein-ligand complexes were discussed. In addition, the interfacing of liquid chromatography (LC) with ESI-MS and the development of an LC-ESI-MS method were demonstrated in paper III for the quality control of recombinant proteins. Furthermore, this method was applied in paper IV for the analysis of covalent glycosyl-enzyme intermediates. The monitoring of noncovalent complexes by ESI-MS is well established. However, the varying characteristic of ESI-MS data, especially in the analysis of noncovalent complexes can make the quantification of such complexes troublesome. In paper I, it was demonstrated how the variation in the position of the ESI-emitter and the initial droplet size of the electrosprayed droplets, together with different partitioning of a protein and its ligand in these droplets, can be the cause of such varying characteristics. Furthermore, it was shown that the partitioning can be of electrostatic and/or hydrophobic/hydrophilic origin. Thus it was demonstrated that if the ligand is more hydrophobic and thereby more surface active relative to the protein, decreasing the droplet size or increasing the distance between the electrospray emitter and the sampling orifice will lead to more efficient sampling of the droplet bulk where the ligand concentration is low. This results in a favoured sampling of free protein relative to the protein ligand complex. The opposite was shown to occur if the ligand is more hydrophilic than the protein. In paper II, Ribonuclease A (RNAse) was used as a model for enzymes acting on polymeric substrates with different chain lengths. Nano-ESI-MS was applied to monitor the noncovalent interactions between RNAse and different target ligands. Among the single building blocks of RNA, including ribose, the bases adenine, guanine, cytosine and uracil, and phosphate, only phosphate was observed to interact at multiple RNAse sites at a higher cone voltage. Furthermore, monobasic singlestranded deoxycytidylic acid oligomers (dCx) of different lengths (X=6, 9 and 12), and RNAse were analysed with nano-ESI-MS. The deoxycytidylic acid with 12 nucleotides was observed with the highest complex to free protein ratio, hence indicating the strongest interaction. Finally, collision induced dissociation of the noncovalent RNAseA-dC6 complex resulted in dissociation of covalently bound cytosine from the nucleotide backbone rather than break up of the noncovalent complex, illustrating the cooperative effect of multiple noncovalent interactions. In paper III an LC-ESI-MS method was presented capable of analysing proteins 10-100 kDa in size, from salt-containing liquid samples. The proteins included human protein fragments for the largescale production of antibodies and human protein targets for structural determination, expressed in E. coli. Also, glycosylated proteins expressed in Pichia pastoris were analysed. The method provides fast chromatography, is robust and makes use of cheap desalting/trap columns. In addition it was used with optimised reduction and alkylation protocols in order to minimize protein aggregation of denatured and incorrectly folded proteins containing cysteins, which otherwise form adducts by disulfide bond formation. Furthermore, the method was used in paper IV for the quantification of covalent proteinligand intermediates formed enzymatically between PttXET16-34, a xyloglucan endo-transglycosylase (XET) from hybrid aspen, and the synthetic substrates GalGXXXGGG and GalXXXGXXXG designed in order to function as donor substrates only. Thus covalent GalG-enzyme and GalGXXXG-enzyme complexes were detected. Moreover, establishing of a pseudo equilibrium for the formation of the covalent GalGXXXG-enzyme complex enabled quantification of the saccharide and enzyme constituents of this equilibrium and determination of the free energy of formation (∆G0). The high mass resolution of the TOF-MS allowed unambiguous assessment of the covalent nature of the glycosyl-enzyme complexes. Morover, the formation of noncovalent complexes between excess substrate and protein, which can deteriorate MS-signal and increase spectrum complexity, was efficiently avoided by the chromatographic step, which separated the saccharide content from the protein content. / QC 20100913

No description available.

Analysis of low-abundance components in small samples remains a challenge within bioanalytical chemistry, and new techniques for sample pretreatments followed by sensitive and informative detection are required. In this thesis, procedures for preconcentration and separation of proteins and peptides in open microchannels fabricated on silicon microchips are presented. Analyte electromigration was induced by applying a voltage along the channel length, and detection was performed either by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) within the open channel, or by sampling a nL fraction containing the preconcentrated analytes from the channel for subsequent nano-electrospray ionization- (nESI-) or MALDI-MS. Utilizing solvent evaporation from the open system during sample supply, sample volumes exceeding the 25-75 nL channel volume could be analyzed. For preconcentration/separation of components in the discrete channel volume a lid of inert fluorocarbon liquid was used for evaporation control. In Papers I and II, aqueous, carrier-free solutions of proteins and peptides were analyzed, and the method was successfully applied for fast and simple preconcentration of amyloid beta (Aβ) peptides, related to Alzheimer’s disease. The impact of possible impurities in the analysis of carrier-free solutions was investigated in Paper III with the 1D simulation software GENTRANS, and a method for open-channel isoelectric focusing in a tailor-made pH gradient was developed. The latter approach was used in Paper IV for preconcentration and purification of Aβ peptides after immunoprecipitation from cerebrospinal fluid and blood plasma, followed by MALDI-MS from a micropillar chip. Paper V includes simulations of an isotachophoretic strategy for selective enrichment of Aβ peptides. GENTRANS simulations were used to select the electrolyte composition, and 2D simulations in a geometry suitable for on-chip implementation were performed using COMSOL Multiphysics. / <p>QC 20160930</p>

<div><div><div><div>Mass spectrometry is a widely used tool for efficient chemical characterization and identification. The development of electrospray ionization as a soft ionization method enables mass spectrometry for large biomolecule investigation. Protein as one of the most important classes of biomolecules, its structural changes including folding, unfolding, aggregation, degradation and post-translational modification all influence protein bioactivity. Protein characterization and identification are important for protein behavior mechanism understanding, which may further contribute to disease treatment development. Protein conformation changes are normally very fast, and the initial stages, which significantly influence the conformation changing pathway, normally occur in milliseconds or shorter time scale. Such a fast structural change is hard to be monitored using traditional bulk solution manipulations, and fast sample preparation methods are required. </div><div><br></div><div>In this thesis project, theta tips are applied as a microreactor and nESI-MS emitter to perform fast protein manipulation immediately before MS analysis. Theta tips can be operated in two modes. The first mode is for submillisecond time scale reactions. Proteins and reagents are loaded into different channels and directly sprayed out simultaneously. Proteins and reagents mix and react in the Taylor cone and subsequent droplets for submillisecond time scale. Through this method, pH induced protein folding is investigated and protein folding intermediates were captured. The second mode is for milliseconds or longer reactions. Differential voltages can be applied to each channel before ionization and spray. The electric field between the two channels induces in-tip electroosmosis, which lead to an in-tip mixing and reaction. In this mode, the reaction time is not limited by the droplet lifetime as in the first mode, but is controlled by electroosmosis time. By changing the electroosmosis square wave frequency and cycles, the mixing time can be elongated to milliseconds or longer, which is suitable for slower reaction study. </div><div>Joule heating is discovered during theta tip electroosmosis when samples are dissolved in buffer. The Joule heating effect is high enough to heat up the aqueous solution to at least 75 oC based on Raman thermometry measurement, while the actual peak temperature could be higher. The Joule heating effect in theta tip electroosmosis can be easily controlled by electroosmosis voltage, time, buffer concentration etc.. Proteins are thermally denatured by the Joule heating effect, and the denaturation extent correlates with Joule heating parameters. </div><div>With this results in hand, we are developing a protein melting temperature measurement method using theta tip Joule heating effect and mass spectrometry. This new melting temperature measurement method measures changes in protein mass and charge state distributions. Therefore, it could sensitively detect ligand loss and protein tertiary structural changes, which is an important compensation to current protein melting temperature measurement techniques like CD or DSC. Since the heating time is short and protein concentration for MS is low, protein aggregation and thermal fragmentation are highly avoided so a complete protein thermal unfolding process is monitored. Theta tip electroosmosis combining MS characterized protein thermal denaturation behavior from a new aspect.</div><div><br></div><div>Besides single protein folding and unfolding, protein identification and post-translational modification are important for proteomics study. The traditional bottom-up, top-down and middle-down methods are not able to both preserve intact protein mass and efficiently generate enough fragment peaks easily without performing gas phase dissociation. In this thesis, we also developed a new way to identify proteins combining limited trypsin digestion and mass spectrometry. Intact protein mass was preserved for protein size and PTM identification. Enough tryptic peptides were also generated for protein identification through database search.</div></div></div></div><div><br></div>

No description available.