2014 Volume 3 Issue Special_Issue Pages S0023
The amino acid residues susceptible to in-source decay (ISD) in matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry have been identified from both positive and negative ion ISD spectra of cytochrome c, myoglobin, thioredoxin and bovine serum albumin. Backbone cleavages at the N–Cα bonds of Xxx–Asp, Xxx–Asn, Xxx–Cys, and Gly–Xxx residues gave discontinuous intense peaks of c-ions, independent of positive and negative ion mode. The intensity values for c-ions, Int(c), were defined to allow estimation of the discontinuous intense peaks of c-ions. The identities of the high intensity value residues Asp, Asn, Cys, and Gly were compared with those identified using other measures of flexibility such as the B-factor, turn preferential factor and protection factor. The comparison indicates that Asp, Asn, and Gly residues are common to all measures. Thus, the intensity values of c-ions can be adopted as a measure of protein flexibility.