Mass spectrometry for oligonucleotide analysis: from sequencing to biophysical characterization

Mass spectrometry became a versatile tool for small molecule characterization and for protein sequencing, but maybe less well known is its potential use for biophysics. The mass of the complex gives information about which molecules interact with which ones and the stoichiometries of the complexes, the abundance of the complex gives information about the equilibrium formation constants (or about kinetics, in time-resolved experiments), and advanced MS techniques (ion mobility, ion spectroscopy, ion-molecule reactions and sometimes MS/MS) give additional structural information on the structure of each complex. The talk will illustrate the use of MS to study nucleic acids biophysics1—folding into unusual structures such as G-quadruplexes and interaction with small molecule ligands—and will outline future directions in the field.