Phosphoric acid enhances the performance of Fe(III) affinity chromatography and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization tandem mass spectrometry for recovery, detection and sequencing of phosphopeptides.

An integrated analytical strategy for enrichment, detection and sequencing of phosphorylated peptides by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) is reported. o-Phosphoric acid was found to enhance phosphopeptide ion signals in MALDI-MS when used as the acid dopant in 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,5-DHB) matrix. The effect was largest for multiply phosphorylated peptides, which exhibited an up to ten-fold increase in ion intensity as compared with standard sample preparation methods. The enhanced phosphopeptide response was observed during MALDI-MS analysis of several peptide mixtures derived by proteolytic digestion of phosphoproteins. Furthermore, the mixture of 2,5-DHB and o-phosphoric acid was an excellent eluant for immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC). Singly and multiply phosphorylated peptide species were efficiently recovered from Fe(III)-IMAC columns, reducing sample handling for phosphopeptide mapping by MALDI-MS and subsequent phosphopeptide sequencing by MALDI-MS/MS. The enhanced response of phosphopeptide ions in MALDI facilitates MS/MS of large (>3 kDa) multiply phosphorylated peptide species and reduces the amount of analyte needed for complete characterization of phosphoproteins.