There have been significant advances in instrumentation concerned with the analysis of biopolymers in the last five years. The recent developments have provided physical methods for determining both purity and molecular weight of biopolymers with greater accuracy than by traditional methods. In the separation sciences, capillary electrophoresis has emerged as an invaluable tool for the biochemical analyst. In the spectroscopic world vast improvements in mass spectrometric instrumentation have provided an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity. This factor, along with the revival of techniques such as laser irradiation and electrospray, (which along with several important discoveries concerning trivial chemistry during sample preparation in the former and realisation of the effect and importance of multiple charging in the latter) now means that the analysis of biopolymers by mass spectrometry is not only feasible but is becoming almost routine. In this thesis, in chapters 1, 2 and 3 the new techniques are described and applied to everyday analytical problems posed to the biochemical analyst in the pharmaceutical industry. In chapter 4 a comparison is made between an established liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry interface and electrospray, using a standard peptide mixture for reference. The importance of traditional methods of protein digestion by enzymes is highlighted in chapter 5, where novel use of an anomeric specific enzyme is made and the products analysed by two different mass spectrometric techniques. Chapter 6 describes the new role that mass spectrometry has claimed in biopolymer analysis by enabling a new protocol to be established in the search for novel pharmaceutical compounds which are both more efficient and more specific in their action.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:637201 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Haley, T. M. |
| Publisher | Swansea University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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