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Tech Intelligence
Life Science Mass Spectrometry From evolution to molecular biology, scientists use this
by Mike May AL
AL technology to explore the details
How have the interactions of macromolecules in organisms evolved over eons? To find out, Cuihong Wan and Blake Borgeson—then both working at the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology at the University of Texas at Austin—used various forms of mass spectrometry (MS) to study protein complexes across a wide range of organisms in search of protein–protein interactions that have endured as organisms evolved. The researchers examined a long list of organisms, from yeast and fungi to mice and humans, and reported: “Clustering reveals a spectrum of conservation, ranging from ancient eukaryotic assemblies that have probably served cellular housekeeping roles for at least one billion years, ancestral com- plexes that have accrued contemporary components, and rarer metazoan innovations linked to multicellularity.”1
It’s no surprise that Wan et al. used MS to explore the evolution of proteins. “A lot of the applications of MS in the life sciences focus on proteomics,” says Bob Galvin, vice president of ‘omics’ and biopharma at Bruker (Buckinghamshire, U.K.). “Life scientists want to identify as many different peptides—pieces of proteins—as possible.”
Beyond identification, researchers seek to understand the mechanisms that proteins control. So, as Galvin says, “A biologist’s point of view requires more than identifying a protein, but also knowing which ones were up- or down-regulated, which requires accurate quantitation.” A quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-TOF) MS “is very good at quantitation,” says Galvin. The Orbitrap, from Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, Mass.), is well-suited for quantifying peptides, Galvin says.
In addition to gathering quantified information about proteins, life scien- tists also want to know more about the proteins, such as how they’ve been modified, which is known as post-translational modification. This affects how a protein works and what it does. Adding a sugar to a protein, or
by author
Mass spectrometry can explore the entire spectrum of the life sciences, from simpler organisms—like this green algae—to humans. (Image cour- tesy of Louisa Howard, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.)
AMERICAN LABORATORY 32
Many MS applications in the life sciences involve proteins, including structural analysis. (Image courtesy of George Makhatadze, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.)
MAY 2016
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