This award is for the acquisition of an ion trap mass spectrometer (MS) to support a diverse portfolio of basic research activities. These activities are united by their strong need for the MS/MS fragmentation capabilities, the superior sensitivity, and the ability to resolve and analyze peptide mixes using upstream in-line liquid chromatography. The MS will provide crucial insights into the structure, function, and regulation of five fundamentally important biomolecules, including the Midline-1 phosphoprotein, the lipid-droplet-associated protein-1, and apolipoprotein A-I. The MS will provide molecular insights into cellular differentiation and lipid transport processes. The MS will illuminate limitations to photosynthetic productivity, and it will contribute to the use of pectins in foodstuffs and as bio-industrial precursors. The MS will also be used to identify proteins governing plant-insect and plant-microbe relationships, protein chaperone networks, plant responses to oxidative stress, and plant meiosis. Because the most advanced MS on campus has no fragmentation, Liquid Chromatography, or Electro-Spray Ionization capabilities, the new MS will be valuable for many of the university's current research activities.
In addition to the scientific benefit, the MS will be useful for the investigators' undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral trainees. All of these students and trainees will analyze data from the MS, and about a third of them will be trained to use this sophisticated instrument directly. The MS will enhance the existing semi-annual workshops on ""Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics,? and it will be integrated into the university's undergraduate biochemistry laboratory curricula to expose students to modern analytical approaches. The MS will be featured in outreach efforts that will include presentations on-campus and off-campus, as well as other novel outreach efforts. Approximately half of this outreach will be directed toward: minority programs, the minority institute Langston University, two of the State's non-Ph.D. institutes, and students who do not currently consider themselves research-bound.
