Mass Spectrometry Instrument for Mass Determination of Protein and Nucleic Acid Conjugates

Mass Spectrometry Instrument for Mass Determination of Protein and Nucleic Acid Conjugates Mass Spectrometry Instrument for Mass Determination of Protein and Nucleic Acid Conjugates The primary focus of the newly established Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics (CMDB) at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University is to construct functional materials using biopolymers including proteins, peptides, and DNA. A crucial aspect of this proposal is the use of bioconjugation techniques to generate DNA-protein or DNA-peptide conjugates that will direct the self-assembly of the hybrid building blocks. To confirm the identities, and evaluate the purity of the conjugates, it will be necessary to separate the different species in the reaction mixtures and determine their compositions. A dedicated mass spectrometer (MS) is the most direct analytical method for this application, but currently no open-access protein electrospray MS system exists at ASU. Furthermore, because the analytes will consist of molecules of hybrid composition, it is possible that each of the conjugates could pose a unique set of challenges from the perspective of the mass spectrometric analysis. We propose to acquire a state-of-the-art MS system specifically tailored for the analysis of large macromolecules such as proteins, DNA, and their respective conjugates. This system has the ability to analyze the masses of molecules from ~5-500 kDa, and will therefore be applicable for the analysis of biomolecules ranging in size from large peptides or short DNA oligomers to large proteins or supramolecular complexes. Moreover, the instrument has tandem MS/MS capability allowing for the fragmentation and subsequent analysis of protein or DNA fragments, or small molecules. This system will benefit current projects funded by DoD, find extensive use across multiple research groups within the CMDB, and will provide capabilities of great utility to a number of researchers within the Biodesign Institute and ASU as a whole. In addition, it will be key to research-based education of graduate students, undergraduates, and postdoctoral researchers working in the new field of DNA-protein hybrid nanotechnology.