Title:Mass Spectrometry (MS/MS) and Proteomics: A High-Performance Bioanalytical Technique for the Peptide Drug Discovery
Volume: 18
Issue: 7
Author(s): T. Durai A. Kumar, Sandhya Desai, Soumya Venkaraddiyavar, Naraparaju Swathi and Gurubasavaraj V. Pujar*
Affiliation:
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, JSS College of Pharmacy, JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research, Mysuru-570 015, Karnataka,India
Keywords:
Peptide therapeutics, Mass spectrometry, proteomics, tandem mass spectrometer, data acquisition, matrix-assisted
laser desorption/ionization.
Abstract: Drug discovery research focuses on the Rational Drug Design (RDD) concepts, and the
major obstacles in the drug discovery process are the lack of target specificity and selectivity. The
realization of higher target selectivity of peptide drugs has promoted peptide research. Rapid growth
in genomics along with recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology and gene expression studies stimulated
the peptide research. The promising use of peptide therapeutics demands sensitive and selective quantification
methods. Protein sequencing and proteomic investigations can be successfully accomplished
through the Mass Spectroscopy (MS) based methods. Mass spectroscopy-based soft ionization methods,
namely, electrospray ionization (ESI) and Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization (MALDI),
offer high-throughput sequencing to provide the characterization (sequence and structure) of intact
proteins/peptides. The advent of tandem Mass Spectrometry (MS/MS) along with data acquisition
methods are the basis for the evolution of peptide therapeutics research. The evolution of data science
helped in developing computational proteomics, which assists in the quantitative determination of
protein samples. This review narrates the role of mass spectrometry in the peptide drug discovery
particularly in the sequence characterization along with the latest developments, such as computational
proteomics.
