Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics
Open Access
ISSN: 0974-276X
ISSN: 0974-276X
Tandem Mass Tags (TMT) are chemical tags that facilitate sample multiplexing for Mass Spectrometry (MS) based quantification and identification of biopolymers such as proteins, peptides, and nucleic acids. TMT belongs to a family of reagents called isobaric mass tags. This is a set of molecules with the same mass, but producing reporter ions with different masses after fragmentation. The relative proportions of measured reporter ions represent the relative abundance of the labelled molecule, but ion suppression adversely affects accuracy. MALDI-TOF-based protein fingerprinting is used to digest the sample with a specific protease (usually trypsin) and acquire an MS spectrum that produces the masses of all peptides (or MH+). These qualities are used as fingerprints for searching proteins in the database and matching them with their measured masses. Protein tags are convenient and useful tools to improve recombinant protein solubility, streamline protein purification, and easily track proteins during protein expression and purification. Isobaric labeling (such as TMT and iTRAQ) has become a versatile technique for relative protein quantification by testing up to 10 biological samples simultaneously in a single run.
Published Date: 2023-03-21; Received Date: 2022-12-29