a) Metal ions play a role in some pysiological processes. Metallomics is a rather new field of research aiming at… Complete the sentence.
… the complete analysis of all metals and metalloids of a sample and at revealing their interaction with biomolecules.
b) Metallomics and speciation analysis rely on an approach combining different methods. Briefly describe the concept used to identify a metal-biomeolecule interaction site.
Subjecting a tissue to analysis by inorganic mass spectrometry alone would only yield the information that certain elements are present in this sample – no more no less. The repertoire of biomedical MS is required to identify molecular species.
Typically, a rough fractionation by liquid chromatography and/or other separation techniques precedes the measurement of survey spectra of such fractions by MALDI-MS. While inorganic MS of a fraction detects the presence of an element, its isotopic pattern may serve as a guide to the identification of a molecular species in the MALDI spectrum. Knowing retention time and molecular mass of the species, LC-MS/MS can be employed for structure elucidation (cf. introductory example of Chap. 15).