With support from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities - Multiuser Instrumentation (CRIF-MU) Program, the Department of Chemistry at Portland State University will purchase a semi-high-resolution tandem quadrupole/time-of-flight mass spectrometer to be coupled to an existent liquid chromatography system and to an electrospray ionization device. The resultant electrospray ionization LC-TOF tandem MS will be utilized in the following research projects: 1) discovery and manipulation of natural products biosynthetic pathways in Streptomyces; 2) regulation mechanisms of isoprene biosynthesis and isoprenoid metabolism; 3) the formation and function of chemically modified nucleosides present in transfer RNA (tRNA); 4) the synthesis and characterization of new organic compounds, including redox and chromophore materials; 5) structural and dynamical studies of glycosylated collagens, polymeric micellar structures for catalysis and drug delivery, and drug-heme complexes; and 6) the study of metabolic activations of biologically active organosulfur compounds.
Liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (LC/MS) is an extremely powerful technique used for the separation and analysis of complex mixtures. Electrospray ionization (ESI) is a technique used in mass spectrometry to produce ions with minimal fragmenting, especially useful with macromolecules. Combing LC/MS with electrospray ionization results in a mass spectrometer that is very effective for analyzing large biomolecules, such as those presented in this proposal.
