Title "Exploiting Chemical Modifications for Structural Elucidation by Mass Spectrometry"

Dr. Ian K. Webb

Webb Labs at IU Indianapolis

Hosted By: Dr. Young-Jin Lee

Abstract: Chemical modifications combined with mass spectrometry have been extensively used for the identification and quantification of compounds of interest. Applications range from sample derivatization to the use of bioconjugation and chemical probes of protein structure. The Webb Lab uses solution and gaseous chemistries to facilitate the identification of compounds and their three-dimensional structures. Our group uses chemical crosslinking, conducted in native-like solutions, to gain insight into the structures and conformational heterogeneity of dynamic protein systems. We have employed a combination of solution and gas-phase approaches with model folded and unfolded proteins to quantify the changes in structure upon ionization and analysis in the gas phase by mass spectrometry. We expect that these experiments will help us characterize to what extent so-called “native” mass spectrometry approaches, which in principle are high throughput and require minute amounts of sample, can be used to accurately solve structures of proteins and protein complexes. Finally, new insights into how post translational modifications modulate structure will be presented.

Ian K Webb – Webb Labs at IU Indianapolis