Stem Cells, Vol 12, 68-73, Copyright © 1994 by AlphaMed Press
Mass spectrometry in the development of drugs from traditional medicines
FW McLafferty and MW Senko
Baker Laboratory, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-1301.
The mass spectrometer ionizes molecules to separate and weigh the resulting
molecular ions and their dissociation products. These product masses
indicate directly the sequence of constituents of the original molecule,
such as amino acids in proteins or bases in nucleotides. Because single
ions can be detected, even subfemtomole sensitivities are possible. In
tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), molecular ions from a mixture can be
separated to isolate ions of a specific component, whose further
dissociation can then give structural information on that component.
Electrospray ionization and other recently developed methods make possible
the ionization of biomolecules even larger than 100 kDa. The
Fourier-transfer mass spectrometer has unusual capabilities for measuring
ions over a 100 kDa mass range simultaneously at unit resolution for MS/MS
applications utilizing subfemtomole sample quantities.
