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Updated: Aug 18, 2026

In Situ Characterization of Hydrated Proteins in Water by SALVI and ToF-SIMS
Published on: February 15, 2016
Observation of water molecules bound to a protein using cold-spray ionization mass spectrometry
Yoshihisa Sei1, Sakurako Shimotakahara, Juri Ishii
1Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Kagawa Campus, Tokushima Bunri University, Shido, Sanuki-city, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan.
Abstract:
The characterization of water molecules bound to ribonuclease T1 (RNase T1) was carried out using cold-spray ionization mass spectrometry (CSI-MS). CSI-MS is a variant of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) operating at low temperature, and is particularly suitable for investigating the weaker molecular associations, since the temperature at the spray interface is much lower than that in the conventional ESI-MS. In this approach, ion peaks due to the addition of nine water molecules were identified at a spray temperature of 48 degrees C. This result showed good agreement with that inferred by the combinational analysis of NMR and X-ray crystallography, indicating that CSI-MS is capable of rapidly providing reliable information to characterize the number of water molecules bound to a macromolecule.
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