Method and device for protein sequence analysis

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and a device for protein sequence analysis, and the use of microdroplets for improving protein sequencing by accelerating enzymatic digestion. The method comprises the following steps: a) forming a solution containing protein into microdroplets having a size small enough to result in acceleration of protein digestion; b) introducing the microdroplets into a mass spectrometer (MS) for real-time detection; c) obtaining analysis result of the protein from the mass spectrometer (MS), wherein the protein is fully digested in the microdroplets before entering the mass spectrometer (MS). The method and device can achieve simple and nearly complete protein digestion in a very short time, and obtain higher sequence coverage.

Description

technical field

[0001] The present invention relates to methods and devices for protein sequence analysis. More specifically, the present invention relates to a protein sequence analysis method and a droplet-MS (droplet-mass spectrometer) device for protein sequence analysis. The present invention also relates to the use of microdroplets for improving protein sequencing by accelerating enzymatic digestion, wherein the microdroplets are formed from a solution containing a protein and the size of the microdroplets is small enough to result in an acceleration of protein digestion. Background technique

[0002] In bottom-up proteomics, enzymatic digestion of proteins is a key method essential to breaking down proteins into smaller polypeptides before analyzing their structure by mass spectrometry (MS) 1 . In a typical enzymatic digestion, a protein solution is mixed with an appropriate amount of enzyme (eg, trypsin) and incubated overnight at 37°C. However, such a process is ...

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