Coupling High-Field Asymmetric Waveform Ion Mobility Spectrometry with Capillary Zone Electrophoresis-Tandem Mass Spectrometry for Top-Down Proteomics

Anal Chem. 2023 Jun 27;95(25):9497-9504. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.3c00551. Epub 2023 May 30.

Abstract

Capillary zone electrophoresis-tandem mass spectrometry (CZE-MS/MS) has emerged as an essential technique for top-down proteomics (TDP), providing superior separation efficiency and high detection sensitivity for proteoform analysis. Here, we aimed to further enhance the performance of CZE-MS/MS for TDP via coupling online gas-phase proteoform fractionation using high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS). When the compensation voltage (CV) of FAIMS was changed from -50 to 30 V, the median mass of identified proteoforms increased from less than 10 kDa to about 30 kDa, suggesting that FAIMS can efficiently fractionate proteoforms by their size. CZE-FAIMS-MS/MS boosted the number of proteoform identifications from a yeast sample by nearly 3-fold relative to CZE-MS/MS alone. It particularly benefited the identification of relatively large proteoforms, improving the number of proteoforms in a mass range of 20-45 kDa by 6-fold compared to CZE-MS/MS alone. FAIMS fractionation gained nearly 20-fold better signal-to-noise ratios of randomly selected proteoforms than no FAIMS. We expect that CZE-FAIMS-MS/MS will be a useful tool for further advancing the sensitivity and coverage of TDP. This work shows the first example of coupling CE with ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) for TDP.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • DNA-Binding Proteins
  • Electrophoresis, Capillary / methods
  • Ion Mobility Spectrometry
  • Proteomics* / methods
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry* / methods

Substances

  • DNA-Binding Proteins