Protein Identification from Two-dimensional Gel Electrophoresis Based on Peptide Mass Fingerprinting (PMF) Using a Benchtop MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometer

Introduction

At present, shotgun proteomics techniques using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry are utilized mainly as high-throughput methods for identifying many different proteins in cellular cytoplasm. However, these techniques are not necessarily effective for identifying all proteins. In particular, when handling proteins separated by means of two-dimensional electrophoresis etc., the protein spots detected on the electrophoresis gel must be linked to the results of protein identification. For such analyses, there may be many cases where using MALDI- TOF mass spectrometry is more efficient than using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry after enzyme- treating the protein spots separated from the gel. This article introduces an example of protein identification using two-dimensional electrophoresis and a benchtop MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer.

October 11, 2017 GMT