Max Planck Institute is enhancing its research on neurodegenerative diseases by adding a Waters Synapt high definition mass spectrometry (HDMS) system to its complement of research technologies
The Max Planck Institute's department of cellular biochemistry recently took delivery of its Synapt HDMS System to study the role of proteins in causing brain-wasting diseases including Huntington's Disease.
"Our initial impression of the Synapt HDMS system was of a very powerful two-dimensional separation device.
"We wanted a system that could measure large intact protein complexes with high accuracy.
"The ability to additionally separate species by ion mobility greatly enhances the appeal of this system," commented director Prof Ulrich Hartl and principal investigator, Manajit Hayer-Hartl.
Dr Hayer-Hartl's research focuses on the understanding of the mechanisms by which molecular chaperones mediate protein folding and inhibit misfolding in neurodegenerative diseases.
The Synapt System will analyse the large protein complexes, and their subunit composition, that are involved in such diseases.
Prof Hartl and Hayer-Hartl are looking to the Synapt system to give them greater insight into protein folding, assembly, and aggregation pathways by being able to resolve, identify and characterise intermediates based on differences in conformation, something that is nearly impossible to do with current technology.
"We will follow folding and/or aggregation pathways in the presence or absence of chaperone systems in combination with hydrogen/deuterium exchange technology.
"The Synapt System's Triwave technology for separating ions by their mobility will allow us to characterize our proteins of interest in greater detail than any other mass spectrometry system currently available," Hayer-Hartl explained.
Waters introduced the Synapt HDMS system at the American Society of Mass Spectrometry annual meeting in Seattle in June of 2006.
It is the first commercially-available mass spectrometer to combine high-efficiency, ion mobility-based measurements and separations with a high-performance orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometer.
