Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlights
  • Published:

Ion-mobility spectroscopy

Crowning achievement

Nature Chemistry volume 5, page 150 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135, 1177–1180 (2013)

They studied the effects of non-covalently attaching crown ethers (18-crown-6) on the structure of cytochrome c. Crown ethers (CEs) are known to co-ordinate to protonated lysine side-chains and can act as a substitute for the absent solvent molecules. Using IMS and MS they showed that the effect of adding an increasing number of CE molecules to cytochrome c differed depending on its original charge. Adding CEs to high charge (>9+) or low charge (<6+) cytochrome c caused the proteins to become progressively bigger (larger collision cross-sections) — as might be expected because of the CEs they now carry. Those of intermediate charge, however, surprisingly shrunk in size. Next the team looked at what happened when the CEs were removed using a collision-induced fragmentation technique, and saw a reversal of the behaviour — the cytochrome c proteins of intermediate charge increased in size.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Authors
  1. Gavin Armstrong
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Armstrong, G. Crowning achievement. Nature Chem 5, 150 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1590

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1590

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing