Capillary Electrophoresis and Electron Capture Dissociation Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry for Peptide Mixture and Protein Digest Analysis

Abstract

Recent advances in peptide fragmentation techniques and mass spectrometry have opened up the possibility of combining peptide separation techniques, such as capillary electrophoresis (CE) and capillary liquid chromatography, with Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) and electron capture dissociation (ECD) in order to characterize peptide mixtures and protein digests. The results presented in this study show that CE/ECD-FT-ICR MS can be employed for peptide characterization in mixtures of standard peptides and in peptides resulting from the enzymatic digestion of proteins. Furthermore, the technique has potential for the identification and localization of post-translational modifications in peptides and proteins.