Study of Non-Covalent Multisubunit Protein-Carbohydrate Interactions by Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry
Date
Author
Institution
Degree Level
Degree
Department
Supervisor / Co-Supervisor and Their Department(s)
Examining Committee Member(s) and Their Department(s)
Citation for Previous Publication
Link to Related Item
Abstract
This thesis describes the development and application of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) based techniques to investigate protein-carbohydrate interactions in vitro. A catch-and-release electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (CaR-ESI-MS) assay was developed for the identification of specific interactions between water-soluble multisubunit proteins and glycosphingolipids (GSL). The assay is of high sensitivity and specificity, and demonstrates the potential for discovering biologically relevant protein-GSL interactions. Collision-induced dissociation (CID) experiments and molecular dynamic simulations were performed to investigate the dissociation pathways of multisubunit protein-ligand complexes in the gas phase. The observation of multiple dissociation pathways suggests that collisional activation of multisubunit protein-ligand complexes in the gas phase is likely to induce significant changes to the nature of the protein-ligand interactions.