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Full-Text Articles in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology

Amyloidogenesis Of Β-2-Microglobulin Studied By Mass Spectrometry And Covalent Labeling, Blaise G. Arden Oct 2021

Amyloidogenesis Of Β-2-Microglobulin Studied By Mass Spectrometry And Covalent Labeling, Blaise G. Arden

Doctoral Dissertations

Amyloid-forming proteins are implicated in a number of debilitating diseases. While many amyloid-forming proteins are well studied, the early stages of amyloidosis are still not well understood on a molecular level. Covalent labeling, combined with mass spectrometry (CL-MS), is uniquely well suited to provide molecular-level insight into the factors governing the early stages of amyloidosis. This dissertation leverages CL-MS techniques to examine the early stages of β-2-microglobulin (β2m) amyloidosis. β2m is the protein that forms amyloids in the condition known as dialysis-related amyloidosis. An automated CL-MS technique that uses dimethyl(2-hydroxy-5-nitrobenzyl) sulfonium bromide as a labeling reagent was developed and used …


Structural Analysis Of Protein Therapeutics By Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange And Covalent Labeling Mass Spectrometry, Catherine Yvonne Tremblay Sep 2021

Structural Analysis Of Protein Therapeutics By Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange And Covalent Labeling Mass Spectrometry, Catherine Yvonne Tremblay

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the use of mass spectrometry (MS) to study therapeutic protein higher order structure (HOS) by encoding the structure into the mass of the protein. As therapeutic proteins become more common in the pharmaceutical industry, the need for methods that accurately determine their HOS has grown. Two methods applied here are hydrogen deuterium exchange (HDX) MS and diethylpyrocarbonate (DEPC) covalent labeling (CL) MS. We demonstrate how these two methods provide complementary, and sometimes synergistic, information about protein HOS. HDX/MS reports on both changes in solvent exposure and changes in protein dynamics, and as a result it can …


Lcms-Based Analysis Explains The Basis Of Oxidative Resistance In Selenium-Containing Thioredoxin Reductase, Daniel Haupt Jan 2021

Lcms-Based Analysis Explains The Basis Of Oxidative Resistance In Selenium-Containing Thioredoxin Reductase, Daniel Haupt

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Selenocysteine (Sec) is referred to as the 21st proteogenic amino acid and is found in place of the redox-sensitive amino acid cysteine (Cys) in a small number of proteins. Sec and Cys carry out similar chemistry and are structural isomers save for a single atom difference; the former contains selenium (Se), while the latter contains sulfur (S) in the identical position. Sec poses a high bioenergetic cost for its synthesis and subsequent incorporation into protein not shared by Cys. Since Sec’s discovery in 1976, scientists have debated why certain proteins express Sec while others express Cys. In recent years, it …