Advancements Of Mass Spectrometry In Biomedical Research

This volume explores the use of mass spectrometry for biomedical applications. Chapters focus on specific therapeutic areas such as oncology, infectious disease, and psychiatry. Additional chapters focus on methodology, technologies and instrumentation, as well as on analysis of protein-protein interactions, protein quantitation, and protein post-translational modifications. Various omics fields such as proteomics, metabolomics, glycomics, lipidomics, and adductomics are also covered. Applications of mass spectrometry in biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry are also discussed. This volume provides readers with a comprehensive and informative manual that will allow them to appreciate mass spectrometry and proteomic research, but also to initiate and improve their own work. This book acts as a technical guide as well as a conceptual guide to the newest information in this exciting field.

This volume explores the use of mass spectrometry for biomedical applications. Chapters focus on specific therapeutic areas such as oncology, infectious disease and psychiatry. Additional chapters focus on methodology as well as new technologies and instrumentation. This volume provides readers with a comprehensive and informative manual that will allow them to appreciate mass spectrometry and proteomic research but also to initiate and improve their own work. Thus the book acts as a technical guide but also a conceptual guide to the newest information in this exciting field. Mass spectrometry is the central tool used in proteomic research today and is rapidly becoming indispensable to the biomedical scientist. With the completion of the human genome project and the genomic revolution, the proteomic revolution has followed closely behind. Understanding the human proteome has become critical to basic and clinical biomedical research and holds the promise of providing comprehensive understanding of human physiological processes. In addition, proteomics and mass spectrometry are bringing unprecedented biomarker discovery and are helping to personalize medicine.

Leading practitioners detail revolutionary new spectrometric techniques for the identification and covalent structural characterization of macromolecules, proteins, glycoconjugates, and nucleic acids. Based on the Fourth International Symposium on Mass Spectrometry in the Health and Life Sciences held in San Francisco in 1998, this invaluable book contains tested strategies for solving many significant biomedical research problems. The techniques use mass spectrometry, automated computer processing of spectral information, and gene, protein, and EST databases for genomic and proteomic correlations. Mass Spectrometry in Biology and Medicine offers a unique opportunity to explore and apply these new techniques of mass spectrometry that are revolutionizing the identification and structural characterization of proteins, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids.

In response to the growing use of mass spectrometry in the clinical and biomedical fields, this book collects recent research involving electrospray ionization, neuronal systems, and structural modifications of proteins. The significant advances in instrumentation, methodology, experimentation presented herein will serve to expand the current concept of clinical mass spectrometry.

When the last edition of this book was published in 2000, the field of proteomics was in its infancy. At that time, multidimensional liquid chromatographic separations were being introduced as an alternative to traditional gel-based techniques for separating complex protein and peptide mixtures prior to mass spectrometric detection. Today, this approach – referred to as shotgun proteomics – is considered routine for lar- scale global analyses of protein mixtures. Now in its adolescence, proteomics is fundamentally transforming biological and medical research. Much of this transformation can be attributed to technological advancements, particularly in mass spectrometry. Much wider accessibility of hi- resolution and mass measurement accuracy instrumentation in recent years has ini- ated a new revolution in the field by providing more reliable data and shifting the focus from cataloging proteins to precisely quantifying changes in protein abundance over time and in response to stimuli. Advanced mass spectrometers and novel ion d- sociation schemes such as electron transfer/capture dissociation make it possible to venture boldly into the maze of protein posttranslational modifications, which are an integral component of understanding functional proteomics in the spatial and t- poral domains. Another area that has benefited from these advancements is top-down proteomics, an emerging method essential for characterizing various protein variants that has potentially high impact in biomedical research.

The aim of this book is to provide the researcher with important sample preparation strategies in a wide variety of analyte molecules, specimens, methods, and biological applications requiring mass spectrometric analysis as a detection end-point. In this volume we have compiled the contributions from several laboratories which are employing mass spectrometry for biological analysis. With the latest inventions and introduction of highly sophisticated mass spectrometry equipment sample preparation becomes an extremely important bottleneck of biomedical analysis. We have a goal of giving the reader several successful examples of sample preparation, development and optimization, leading to the success in analytical steps and proper conclusions made at the end of the day. This book is structured as a compilation of contributed chapters ranging from protocols to research articles and reviews. The main philosophy of this volume is that sample preparation methods have to be optimized and validated for every project, for every sample type and for every downstream analytical technique.