The next frontiers in proteome research are the study of protein-ligand interactions, protein-peptide and protein-protein complexes, together with entire protein interaction networks by high-throughput methods. Structural MS is a quite recent research area that consists in deriving structural information from MS based data and usually focuses on highly purified proteins or protein complexes, most of the time from recombinant origin.

Objectives

Protein characterization (intact mass analysis)
Multiprotein complex analysis (stoichiometry, conformation, interacting regions, dynamics)

Strategies

Mass spectrometry plays a pivotal role in purified protein or protein complexes analysis. Even though MS-based approaches are rather low-resolution techniques, they represent a potential alternative to get structural information that is complementary to classical biophysical methods. Different MS-based approaches for their structural characterization are available within the ProFI consortium:

Native MS and ion mobility
Hydrogen Deuterium eXchange-MS
Covalent chemical labeling (crosslinking)
Top/middle-down MS (proteoform characterization)