Introduction to Protein Mass Spectrometry

Mass spectrometry is one of the oldest analytical techniques used by chemists for unambiguous characterization of a chemical compound. This technique is being routinely used since a long time by organic chemists. Earlier it was considered that only volatile compounds that can be charged by electron ionization or other techniques could be investigated using mass spectrometry. The pathbreaking discovery of soft ionization techniques such as electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) in the late nineties opened the window for mass spectrometric studies of large macro-molecules such as proteins, lipids and nucleic acids.