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.

  • Journal Club
  • Published:

Origins of mass spectrometry-based proteomics

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 17, page 678 (2016)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

Mass spectrometry (MS), which was already a cornerstone of analytical chemistry in the twentieth century, had been confined to a niche role in molecular biology owing to its inability to ionize and vaporize labile molecules such as proteins. This changed dramatically in 1989 with the introduction of electrospray ionization for the analysis of intact proteins, in which I was fortunate to be involved, and which led to the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for my thesis advisor John Fenn. On a mission to bring MS to 'real biology' when I started my own group at the EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany, I was fascinated by a 1992 Science paper by the group of Donald Hunt, which clearly showed that this was no fantasy.

Hunt and colleagues had taken on a real biological challenge

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

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

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

References

  1. Hunt, D. F. et al. Characterization of peptides bound to the class I MHC molecule HLA-A2.1 by mass spectrometry. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1546328 255, 1261–1263 (1992)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Fenn, J. B. et al. Electrospray ionization for mass spectrometry of large biomolecules. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/282574 246, 64–71 (1989)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Mann, M. The rise of mass spectrometry and the fall of Edman degradation. Clin. Chem. http://dx.doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2014.237271 62, 293–294 (2016)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Caron, E. et al. Analysis of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) immunopeptidomes using mass spectrometry. Mol. Cell. Proteomics http://www.mcponline.org/content/14/12/3105 14, 3105–3117 (2015)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Aebersold, R. & Mann, M. Mass-spectrometric exploration of proteome structure and function. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature19949 537, 347–355 (2016)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Proteomics and Signal Transduction, Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry, D-82152 Martinsried (near Munich), Germany.,

    Matthias Mann

Authors
  1. Matthias Mann
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthias Mann.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mann, M. Origins of mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 17, 678 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm.2016.135

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm.2016.135

This article is cited by

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