Patent ID: 6156527
Filing Date: 2000-12-05
Classification: C07K,G01N

Abstract:
A method for characterizing polypeptides, which comprises:(a) treating a sample comprising a population of a plurality of polypeptides with a cleavage agent which is known to recognize in polypeptide chains a specific amino acid residue or sequence and to cleave at a cleavage site, whereby the population is cleaved to generate peptide fragments;(b) isolating a population of peptide fragments which comprises only terminal peptide fragments bearing as a reference terminus the N-terminus or the C-terminus of the polypeptide from which fragments were derived, each peptide fragment bearing at the other end the cleavage site proximal to the reference terminus; and(c) determining by mass spectrometry a signature sequence of at least some of the isolated fragments, which signature sequence is the sequence of a predetermined number of amino acid residues running from the cleavage site;wherein a signature sequence characterize each polypeptide.