Are the Gas-Phase Structures of Molecular Elephants Enduring or Ephemeral? Results from Time-Dependent, Tandem Ion Mobility.

ABSTRACT: The structural stability of biomolecules in the gas phase remains an important topic in mass spectrometry applications for structural biology. Here, we evaluate the kinetic stability of native-like protein ions using time-dependent, tandem ion mobility (IM). In these tandem IM experiments, ions of interest are mobility-selected after a first dimension of IM and trapped for up to ∼14 s. Time-dependent, collision cross section distributions are then determined from separations in a second dimension of IM. In these experiments, monomeric protein ions exhibited structural changes specific to both protein and charge state, whereas large protein complexes did not undergo resolvable structural changes on the timescales of these experiments. We also performed energy-dependent experiments, i.e., co

SUBMITTER: Zercher BP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10549206 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature