Kathrin Breuker and Barbara Ganisl, University of Innsbruck, Austria, report on their findings towards the question whether electron capture dissociation cleaves protein disulfide bonds.

They discuss their results on electron capture dissociation measurements of disulfide-bonded proteins, ecotin, trypsin inhibitor, insulin, aprotinin, and peptides K8- and R8-vasopressin, and conclude that, due to vibrational excitations and secondary radical reactions, it is nearly impossible to predict whether and to what extent disulfide bonds are preserved during collisionally activated dissociation (CAD), electron capture dissociation (ECD), or electron transfer dissociation (ETD).

• Does Electron-Capture Dissociation Cleave Protein Disulfide Bonds?
  Barbara Ganisl and Kathrin Breuker,
  ChemistryOpen 2012, 1(6), 260–268.
  DOI: 10.1002/open.201200038

ChemistryOpen – the first society-owned, open-access, chemistry journal – is a journal of ChemPubSoc Europe published by Wiley-VCH.