From Genome to Life:

YANES TORRADO Oscar

Institut de Biotecnologia I Biomedicina, Enzimology, Campus UAB, Cerdanyola Del Valles 8193, Spain

title: A general method to identify protein ligands in complex mixtures using maldi-tof ms.

The detection of biomolecule interactions in complex mixtures using a minimum of material is of capital interest in molecular and cellular biology research.In this work we report a general mass spectrometry method, that we call intensity-fading (if maldi-tof ms), based on the use of the maldi ion intensities to directly detect the formation of complexes between non-inmobilized biomolecules. We show here several examples of its potential ranging from qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis of model interactions to finding protease inhibitors in complex biological mixtures.Using this method we have identified in total extracts of marine invertebrate organisms a novel protein inhibitor of the metallocarboxypeptidase family. The proposed procedure should be easily applied to the high-throughpout screening (hts) of biomolecules, opening a new view in functional proteomics.