Detection of Non-covalent Interactions

Detection of native protein complexes has been achieved using soft-ionization MS techniques (e.g.nESI). The Russell group is currently developing this method using nESI qTOF-MS. Myoglobin which is non-covalently bonded to a heme group (below) is our prototypical system for these studies. The mass spectrum is a composite of two solvent systems (blue = 50% methanol, orange = pure H2O). Only holomyoglobin is detected in pure H2O, but a mixture of holo- and apo-myoglobin is detected when methanol is added. Future goals include detection of protein-peptide interactions and dissection of protein complexes using this technique.