Electrospray Ionization for Mass Spectrometry of Large Biomolecules

Electrospray ionization has recently emerged as a powerful technique for producing intact ions in vacuo from large and complex species in solution. To an extent greater than has previously been possible with the more familiar ``soft'' ionization methods, this technique makes the power and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 246; no. 4926; pp. 64 - 71
Main Authors Fenn, John B., Mann, Matthias, Meng, Chin Kai, Wong, Shek Fu, Whitehouse, Craig M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 06.10.1989
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Subjects
Analytical Instrumentation
Biochemistry
Biomolecules
Desorption
Flow velocity
Ionization
Ions
Liquids
Mass
Mass spectrometry
Mass Spectrometry - methods
Mass spectroscopy
Methods
Molecular Weight
Molecules
Oligomers
Proteins - analysis
Weights & measures
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Summary:Electrospray ionization has recently emerged as a powerful technique for producing intact ions in vacuo from large and complex species in solution. To an extent greater than has previously been possible with the more familiar ``soft'' ionization methods, this technique makes the power and elegance of mass spectrometric analysis applicable to the large and fragile polar molecules that play such vital roles in biological systems. The distinguishing features of electrospray spectra for large molecules are coherent sequences of peaks whose component ions are multiply charged, the ions of each peak differing by one charge from those of adjacent neighbors in the sequence. Spectra have been obtained for biopolymers including oligonucleotides and proteins, the latter having molecular weights up to 130,000, with as yet no evidence of an upper limit.
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ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.2675315