Mattias Algotsson

Amino Acid Sequencing of Sulfonic Acid-Labeled Tryptic Peptides Using Post-Source Decay and Quadratic Field MALDI-ToF Mass Spectrometry

Knowledge of protein and peptide sequences is fundamentally important for understanding many physiological and biochemical processes at the molecular level. Chemically assisted fragmentation by MALDI (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry) is a new approach for amino acid sequencing of tryptic peptides. The technology is based on a new class of water stable sulfonation reagents, which strongly improves post-source decay (PSD) analysis and also simplifies the interpretation of the fragmentation spectra of the peptides. Convenient derivatization methods have been developed and optimized on a solid-phase support, enabling fast, simple and robust sample preparation.