MALDI-MS of Proteins, Glycans and Lipids – a 15 years retrospective

Gerald Stübiger
Research Scientist
Dept. Biomedical Imaging & Image-guided Therapy
Medical University of Vienna

Proteins, glycans and lipids represent the most important groups of biomolecules. Their structures and composition play a major role in biological processes. These properties are crucially linked to conditions of health and disease of an organism. Hence, the characterization of these three groups of molecules is of great importance in biology, medicine and pharmaceutical industry.

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) represents a versatile and robust technique for the analysis of biomolecules. This comprises the detection of intact molecules over a broad mass range and the structural characterization by tandem-MS (MS/MS) which allows to elucidate the structural features and molecular identity based on fragment ion analysis (PSD and CID). Shimadzu/Kratos Analytical features a broad range of MALDI-(QIT)-TOF(/RTOF)-MS(/MS) instruments which are of interest for diverse applications.

This presentation will provide an overview in the experience with several types of MALDI-MS instruments (e.g. AXIMA-Performance / Resonance, MALDI-8020). This covers the characterization of glycoprotein hormones (e.g. human erythropoietin) in the context of doping control, the analysis of membrane phospholipids (PLs) and their oxidation products (i.e. OxPLs) in relation to cardiovascular disease (e.g. atherosclerosis) and the application of lipid/protein mass profiling for biotyping and the analysis of liquid biopsies (e.g. extracellular vesicles) for potential diagnostic purposes.