Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 22, 2026

Isolation of Fidelity Variants of RNA Viruses and Characterization of Virus Mutation Frequency
Published on: June 16, 2011
Identification of viral mutants by mass spectrometry
J K Lewis1, M Bendahmane, T J Smith
1Departments of Molecular Biology and Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Abstract:
A method to identify mutations of virus proteins by using protein mass mapping is described. Comparative mass mapping was applied to a structural protein of the human rhinovirus Cys1199 --> Tyr mutant and to genetically engineered mutants of tobacco mosaic virus. The information generated from this approach can rapidly identify the peptide or protein containing the mutation and, in cases when nucleic acid sequencing is required, significantly narrows the region of the genome that must be sequenced. High-resolution matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry and tandem mass spectrometry were used to identify amino acid substitutions. This method provides valuable information for those analyzing viral variants and, in some cases, offers a rapid and accurate alternative to nucleotide sequencing.
Related Concept Videos
Viral Mutations
MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry
Peptide Identification Using Tandem Mass Spectrometry
This technique helps gather information regarding the protein from which the peptide was obtained and to study the peptides’ amino acid sequence. Identifying peptides from a complex mixture is an important component of the growing field of...
Rapid Identification of Pathogens

