Analysis of Native-Like Ions Using Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations.

Abstract

Ion mobility separation of native-like protein and protein complex ions expands the structural information available through native mass spectrometry analysis. Here, we implement Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations (SLIM) for the analysis of native-like ions. SLIM has been shown previously to operate with near lossless transmission of ions up to 3000 Da in mass. Here for the first time, SLIM was used to separate native-like protein and protein complex ions ranging in mass from 12 to 145 kDa. The resulting arrival-time distributions were monomodal and were used to determine collision cross section values that are within 3% of those determined from radio-frequency-confining drift cell measurements. These results are consistent with the retention of native-like ion structures throughout these experiments. The apparent resolving powers of native-like ions measured using SLIM are as high as 42, which is the highest value reported directly from experimental data for the native-like ion of a protein complex. Interestingly, the apparent resolving power depends strongly on the identity of the analyte, suggesting that the arrival-time distributions of these ions may have contributions from an ensemble of structures in the gas phase that is unique to each analyte. These results suggest that the broad range of emerging SLIM technologies may all be adaptable to the analysis of native-like ions, which will enable future applications in the areas of structural biology, biophysics, and biopharmaceutical characterization.