Protein Sequencing and Identification Using Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Rating:
Summary: Broad, thorough introduction
Review: I'm not a bench chemist, but I needed a quick survey of how mass spectroscopy is used in handling proteins and other big biomolecules. This book was it.

Although brief, it is thorough and well-organized. The first two chapters are mostly an introduction. Chapter 1 mostly just states the problem being solved. The next chapter is a brief introduction to older technologies, inclduding chemical techiques and 60s-80s mass spec technique. The next two chapters summarize modern mass spec hardware, then start to show how proteins behave in the environment inside the instrument. That gives the fundamentals of protein sequencing: how the molecules break down, and how the fragments help recreate the molecule. The authors go through a few examples in detail, starting from a mass spectrogram and moving forward to sequence. I was especially impressed by the examples that fail. Mass spec analysis is not a magic wand for producing sequences, it is a deductive process, and can not complete an analysis when clues are missing or ambiguous.

The next three chapters are not about mass spec directly. Instead, they discuss how samples are prepared for analysis. This includes the clearest, most informative description of gel electrophoresis that I've seen, along with features of gel chemistry that do or do not interfere with mass spec measurements. This includes a discussion of protein digests, enzymatically produced fragments, and their place in analysis. I would have liked a little more discussion about combining information from digests produced by different enzymes, but no book can cover everything.

The last three chapters extend the discussion of analysis, working upwards from fragments to complete protein sequences. The three chapters respectively address three topics: using standard internet databases for recognizing fragments of known proteins, using combinations of strategies to analyze novel protein, and using mass spec to identify post-translational modifications. That last one suffers from brevity; perhaps it was only meant to define a problem that deserves a whole book of its own.

Despite its throughness, the authors resist the urge for boggling detail. They present detail up to the point needed for understanding the mechanism and meaning of their topics, then stop. Lots of other writing would benefit from that kind of restraint.

I came away from this book well-informed, and ready to address specific topics in greater detail. That was exactly what I wanted. I recommend this book very highly.

Rating:
Summary: "Protein Sequencing ......" a must to read
Review: Michael Kinter has presented the topic in a scientific yet enjoyable format. I found the information to be extremely interesting and beneficial in my laboratory. Lets face it folks this isn't the easiest nor most interesting topic to write about. Job well done DR. Kinter. I only have one criticism, there should have been more photos and illustrations. Get your copies quick this will no doubt be on the NewYork times best seller list before long.