The diverse post translational modifications (PTMs) add up the already enormous in number, meanwhile low abundance for certain species of proteomes with even more complexity. As efforts to enrich peptides and proteins of interest out of complex mass spectral background, various fractionation, separation, enrichment, and feature detection strategies are extensively implemented. Hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC), and its varieties are…
This week, there will be three-minute thesis presentations from nine senior graduate students: Zhengwei Chao, Cynthia Tope, Rob Williams, Yongwook Kim, Tret Burdette, Lily Birx, Fangchao Jiang, Tanvir Ahmed, and Yiqing Zhang
One of the major challenges facing intravenous nanoparticle administration is the formation of protein coronae on the surface of injected nanoparticles, which prevents them from reaching the target tissue. Biocompatible ionic liquids (ILs) have been shown to have tunable interactions with biomolecules including proteins and are prone to rearrangement on charged surfaces. We show that this can be exploited to use designer protein avoidant-ionic…
Despite formaldehyde being a known carcinogen, it is frequently used in cosmetic products as a preservative due to its antimicrobial properties. The FDA lists formaldehyde (FA) and formaldehyde releasers (FR) as common allergens in cosmetic products. According to the European Union, up to 2000 ppm of formaldehyde is permitted in cosmetics but quantifying free formaldehyde from formaldehyde releasers in cosmetics can be challenging.2 Formaldehyde…
Metabolomics is the study of the collective small molecules within a biological system (cell, tissue or whole organism). The study of these small molecules (metabolites) gives a close measure of the phenotype, giving insight into an organism’s physiological and biochemical state at the time of sample collection. Thus, metabolomics has emerged as a highly attractive field employed to study normal physiology and changes in physiology due to…
Traditional tandem mass spectrometry, an analytical technique that isolates a precursor ion then fragments it to obtain structural information, is a method extensively used in analytical chemistry. Coupling different separation methods, like LC and GC, can help study complex mixtures that may be difficult with MS/MS alone. However, the isolation step requires a sufficient signal threshold of the precursors, preventing low signal ions that may…
Glycosylation is a common post translational modification of proteins which adds a complex carbohydrate moiety to one or more sites of the protein. These modifications are found in a large proportion of human proteins and play important roles in organ development, cancer growth, and viral infection mechanisms. Despite their biomedical relevance, methods understanding molecular basis for glycoprotein functions is often hampered by the…
Biotherapeutic drugs present new analytical challenges to the drug development and quality control process. Unlike traditional small molecule drugs where synthetic choices can be tightly controlled, biotherapeutic drugs rely on the integrity of host cell biosynthetic machinery to manufacture the drug. The host cells themselves also present an issue where the biotherapeutic product can be contaminated with trace amounts of host cell proteins (…
Approximately 35% of all drugs currently in clinical use target a single family of proteins: G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs).[1] Due to the therapeutic importance of this class of proteins, it should be no surprise that proteins involved in regulating signaling initiated by GPCRs are gathering attention as potential drug targets. One such family of proteins is known as the Regulators of G-protein Signaling (RGS). These proteins function as…
Biotherapeutic drugs present new analytical challenges to the drug development and quality control process. Unlike traditional small molecule drugs where synthetic choices can be tightly controlled, biotherapeutic drugs rely on the integrity of host cell biosynthetic machinery to manufacture the drug. The host cells themselves also present an issue where the biotherapeutic product can be contaminated with trace amounts of host cell proteins (…