In this dissertation, I describe the experimental investigation of catching ions in superfluid helium droplets. The ultimate goal of our project is to build a coherent electron diffraction apparatus for atomic structure determination from oriented single macromolecules. This involves generating protein ions from electrospray ionization (ESI) and doping them in...
Dysfunction of mitochondria has been linked to aging and the pathogenesis of many degenerative diseases. Aside from their primary function in energy production, mitochondria are considered as a major source and target of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) in cells as well. The mitochondrial thiol proteome is a subset...
There are two distinct methods which are used to study
the volume changes which take place when a protein is placed
in a solution. The first and most common method measures the
volume changes of the solid alone and is commonly known as swelling. The second measures the total volume...
Proteins are essential to all biological systems. Proteins participate in numerous cellular processes by interacting with other proteins, other metabolites and membranes in a dynamic environment. Studying the structural and conformational properties of proteins in the solution phase is necessary to understand their protein folding and interaction dynamics. This research...
Neurofilament proteins are intermediate filaments found in the neuronal cytoskeleton. Phosphorylation of these proteins is considered important for the assembly and stability of the filaments. Accurate molecular weights have been difficult to measure, largely because the high degree of phosphorylation results in M[subscript r]'S that are significantly greater than dictated...
Recombinant human macrophage colony stimulating factor beta (rhm-CSFβ) is a glycoprotein that stimulates the proliferation, differentiation and survival of cells belonging to the monocyte-macrophage lineage. It contains nine inter-subunit and intra-subunit disulfide bonds and represents an excellent model system for studying disulfide bond formation during protein folding because the assembly...
The DNA-binding domains of E. coli uracil-DNA glycosylase (Ung) and human replication protein A (hRPA) were studied using a general protocol developed in our laboratory for probing protein-DNA interactions. The procedure involves purification and mass spectrometric analysis of the nucleopeptide-products of a tryptically digested UV-crosslinked protein-nucleic acid complex. In the...