Perspective: The complex relationship between charge, mobility, and gas-phase protein structure

Abstract

Ion mobility spectrometry coupled to mass spectrometry (IMS/MS) is a widely used tool for biomolecular separations and structural elucidation. The application of IMS/MS has resulted in exciting developments in structural proteomics and genomics. This perspective gives a brief background of the field, addresses some of the important issues in making structural measurements, and introduces complementary techniques.

Keywords: ion chemistry; ion conformation; ion mobility; native mass spectrometry; structural proteomics.