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Welcome to the UMass-Amherst Mass Spectrometry Center

The Center (UMASS-MSC) provides state-of-the-art analytical equipment, analytical services and expertise in mass spectrometry for UMass-Amherst, neighboring scientific communities and their collaborators. Currently, UMASS-MSC serves the needs of more than 30 groups with active life science research interests by facilitating a) development of new organic/inorganic synthetic materials; b) analysis of variety of post-translational modifications in proteins, including biopharmaceuticals; c) quantitative comparative analysis of protein levels; d) fundamental studies in protein/protein and protein/ligand interaction research areas etc., owing to its expanding capabilities in modern methods of mass spectrometry.

UMASS-MSC is also actively used within the framework of the NIH-funded Chemistry-Biology Interface (CBI) program (5T32 GM008515-15). Nineteen training faculty of the CBI program are users of the Facility’s instrumentation.

UMASS-MSC houses hybrid Quadrupole Time-of-Flight (Applied Biosystems QStar-XL), Double-Focusing Magnetic Sector (JEOL-700 MStation), Fourier-Transform Ion-Cyclotron Resonance (Bruker's SolariX 7T FT-ICR), Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (Bruker's MALDI-OmnifleX and MALDI-MicroFlex), Bruker Esquire-LC Ion Trap and MicrOTOF-II mass-spectrometers, several HPLC and GC systems, including Ultimate Nano-LC Packings.

 

 

Recent representative publications

  1. Abzalimov RR. , Bobst CE, Salinas PA, Savickas P, Thomas JJ, Kaltashov IA (2013) Studies of pH-Dependent self-association of a recombinant form of arylsulfatase A with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry Anal Chem. 85(3), 1591-1596 link
  2. Kaltashov, I.A., Eyles, S.J. (2012) Mass Spectrometry in Structural Biology and Biophysics: Architecture, Dynamics and Interaction of Biomolecules, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, 289 pp. (ISBN: 978-0-470-93779-2) link
  3. Al-Amier, H., Eyles, S.J., Craker, L.E. (2012) “Evaluation of extraction methods for isolation and detection of formononetin in black cohosh (Actaea racemosa L.)” J. Medicin. Active Plants, 1, 6-12. link
  4. R.R. Abzalimov, Frimpong A.K., Kaltashov I.A. (2012) Detection and characterization of large-scale protein conformational transitions in solution using charge-state distribution analysis in ESI-MS Methods. Mol. Biol. 896, 365-373 link
  5. R.R. Abzalimov, Frimpong A.K., Kaltashov I.A. (2012) Structural characterization of protein-polymer conjugates. I. Assessing heterogeneity of a small PEGylated protein and mapping conjugation sites using ion exchange chromatography and top-down tandem mass spectrometry Int. J. Mass Spectrom. 312, 135-143 link
  6. Velazquez-Delgado, E. M. and Hardy J.A. (2012) “Phosphorylation regulates assembly of the caspase-6 substrate-binding groove.” Structure 20, 742-751 link
  7. G. Wang, R.R. Abzalimov, I.A. Kaltashov (2011) Direct Monitoring of Heat-Stressed Biopolymers with Temperature-Controlled Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry Anal Chem. 83(8), 2870-2876 link
  8. Eyles, S.J., Gierasch, L.M. (2010) Nature's molecular sponges: Small heat shock proteins grow into their chaperone roles Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 107, 2727-2728 link