Biemann Klaus
Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139; email:
Annu Rev Anal Chem (Palo Alto Calif). 2015;8:1-19. doi: 10.1146/annurev-anchem-071114-040110.
I review laboratory research on the development of mass spectrometric methodology for the determination of the structure of natural products of biological and medical interest, which I conducted from 1958 to the end of the twentieth century. The methodology was developed by converting small peptides to their corresponding polyamino alcohols to make them amenable to mass spectrometry, thereby making it applicable to whole proteins. The structures of alkaloids were determined by analyzing the fragmentation of a known alkaloid and then using the results to deduce the structures of related compounds. Heparin-like structures were investigated by determining their molecular weights from the mass of protonated molecular ions of complexes with highly basic, synthetic peptides. Mass spectrometry was also employed in the analysis of lunar material returned by the Apollo missions. A miniaturized gas chromatograph mass spectrometer was sent to Mars on board of the two Viking 1976 spacecrafts.
我回顾了1958年至20世纪末我所进行的关于开发质谱方法以确定具有生物学和医学意义的天然产物结构的实验室研究。该方法是通过将小肽转化为相应的聚氨基醇，使其适用于质谱分析，从而使其能够应用于完整蛋白质。通过分析已知生物碱的碎片，然后利用结果推断相关化合物的结构，从而确定生物碱的结构。通过从与高碱性合成肽的复合物的质子化分子离子质量确定其分子量，对类肝素结构进行了研究。质谱还用于分析阿波罗任务带回的月球物质。一台小型气相色谱 - 质谱仪搭载在1976年的两艘海盗号航天器上被送往火星。
