Fullerene Derivatives

Fullerene derivatives, such as dioctadecyl methano fullerene, fullerenoacetic acid, and IDA-[60]-fullerene were prepared and subjected to a comprehensive characterization study including protein binding properties and capacity. These fullerene derivatives were successfully applied as material-enhanced laser desorption/ionization (MELDI) carrier materials. It is shown that diverse functionalities result in characteristic human serum peak patterns (m/z 2000-20 000) which vary in terms of signal intensity as well as number of detectable masses. In addition, the fullerene derivatives clearly provided differences in the low molecular weight mass region (m/z 1000-4000) after elution of the adsorbed serum constituents. Monolithic, high-resolution capillary columns, were employed for eluate separation and target spotting. Thus, serum compounds were successfully fractionated and subjected to MS/MS analysis. This contribution, hence, proposes a new 'top-down' strategy for proteome research enabling protein profiling as well as biomarker identification in the low-mass range using selective enrichment, high-resolution separation, and offline MALDI-MS/MS evaluation.

Autorentext

Rainer Vallant, born 1977 in Johannesburg, South Africa; from 2005 PhD-Student at the Institute of Analytical Chemistry and Radiochemistry, University Innsbruck, under the supervision of Prof.Dr.Günther Bonn. The aim of his work is based on the synthesis and modification of nano-structured materials and their further bioanalytical application.