Imagine you had succeeded in isolating, in an FTICR cell, a peptide (or a
mixture of peptides) which had undergone a partial exchange of some of its
hydrogens with deuterium as the result of a H-D exchange experiment (in an
intact protein which was then digested in seconds and introduced to the
spectrometer). The aim of the experiment would be to determine which
residues had undergone exchange. The sites of exchange could be any of the
amide backbone protons and, where susceptible, side chain sites too.
My question is this. If one attempted to analyse the structure of a peptide
in this state by collision-induced fragmentation, is it known whether the
protons and deuterons would move around the structure as part of the
fragmentation process and thus make interpretation impossible? I don't know
enough about the fragmentation mechanism to offer an opinion.
Thanks for any input.
Len
******************************************************
Dr Len C. Packman
Assistant Director of Research
Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry Facility
Department of Biochemistry
University of Cambridge
80 Tennis Court Road
Old Addenbrookes Site
Cambridge, CB2 1GA, UK
Tel: +44 (1223) 333639 (including answerphone)
FAX: +44 (1223) 766002
e-mail: lcp2@mole.bio.cam.ac.uk
Visit my WWW page at http://www.bio.cam.ac.uk/proj/adr/PNAC/pnac.html