New Mass Spectrometry Techniques Push Protein Research into a New Era Recent advances made at EMBL in a technique called Mass Spectrometry are opening the door to an era in which proteins can be routinely sequenced, linked to the specific genes that created them and their functions better understood. Until now, scientists interested in proteins have often found themselves stuck in a technical bottleneck. The group of Matthias Mann has innovated electrospray and laser techniques, plus the biochemical and computer applications which have greatly increased the accuracy, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of analysing proteins. Although the public may know that DNA sequences of genes carry the coded information which defines genes, and therefore biological organisation and processes, most haven't the slightest idea what proteins do.
Proteins are the molecules that carry out most cellular functions.
And each protein is comprised of sequences of building blocks, called amino acids, which are specified by DNA sequences. Mass Spectrometry, especially recent advances at EMBL, promises to change this. If scientists can routinely determine sequences on minute amounts of protein, and work out which gene encodes them, it will help them make a major step forward in our understanding of basic biology. It also mean that proteins that are known to malfunction might lead us directly to the genetic causes of many diseases. MS has been successfully used for more than 30 years in physics and chemistry, but until the late 1980s, large macromolecules such as proteins were destroyed during attempts to vaporise and ionise them.