Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry
Service Work
A full range of mass spectrometry-based analytical services are available through the Centre.
Services are also available through the Department of Biology's Bioscience Technology Facility. The Facility's Proteomics & Analytical Biochemistry Laboratories, in particular, makes extensive use of the Centre's instrumentation to offer a wide range of mass spectrometry-based analyses to a worldwide client base.
Applications and Types of Analysis
Mass spectrometry has a wide range of applications in biology and chemistry. For example, the identification and characterisation of proteins is largely based on mass spectrometry-based methods, and has applications in the discovery of new therapeutic targets and protein-based therapeutics. In the area of chemisty, for example, the study of gas-phase ion reactions provides essential input to the discovery and development of novel catalysts. The types of analysis being undertaken in the Centre are very broad and include, but are not restricted to:
- Primary structure determination
- Protein-ligand and ligand-ligand interactions
- Gas-phase ion chemistry and catalysis
- Protein characterization and quality control
- Identification
- Homogeneity
- Molecular weight
- Sequence verification
- Post-translational modifications
- Shotgun proteomics
- Imaging mass spectrometry
Links
Literature
- Nature Methods review by Siuiti & Kelleher of top-down characterization of intact proteins
- Analytical Chemistry paper by Suckau & Resemann describing determination of N- and C-terminii of proteins by T3 sequencing
- PNAS paper by Syka et al. describing electron transfer dissociation (ETD) for peptide sequencing
- IJMS article by Kim, Rodgers, and Marshall describing how accurate mass measurement can determine elemental composition
- Nature Medicine review by Caprioli et al. of MS imaging