On the Fine Isotopic Distribution and Limits to Resolution in Mass Spectrometry.

ABSTRACT: Mass spectrometry enables the study of increasingly larger biomolecules with increasingly higher resolution, which is able to distinguish between fine isotopic variants having the same additional nucleon count, but slightly different masses. Therefore, the analysis of the fine isotopic distribution becomes an interesting research topic with important practical applications. In this paper, we propose the comprehensive methodology for studying the basic characteristics of the fine isotopic distribution. Our approach uses a broad spectrum of methods ranging from generating functions--that allow us to estimate the variance and the information theory entropy of the distribution--to the theory of thermal energy fluctuations. Having characterized the variance, spread, shape, and size of the fine

SUBMITTER: Dittwald P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4565875 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature