The SCIEX ZenoTOF 7600 mass spectrometer includes a new fragmentation method, being Electron-Activated Dissociation (EAD). For proteome analysis, fragmentation of peptides, protein fragments and intact proteins is essential to identify these biomolecules.   

Among other things, the Gevaert lab (https://cmb.vib.be/labs/gevaert-lab) investigates the amino-(N)terminal parts of proteins via a specialized proteomic technique, being N-terminomics. The identity and modifications of the N-termini of proteins determine, among other things, the stability, localization and collection of interaction partners of proteins, which makes it very interesting from a biomedical and biochemical point of view to identify the N-terminome in cells and tissues via mass spectrometric methods.

Recently, we discovered that our N-terminome technology also allows us to more efficiently identify the "hidden part of the proteome" (e.g. possible translation products of long non-coding RNA molecules), thus identifying new proteins that can and should be functionally characterized by other methods.

A final line of research in the Gevaert lab involves clinical proteomic analyses in which we use N-terminome technology to try to identify specific protein markers for human diseases in liquid biopsies such as blood plasma and cerebrospinal fluid. In this context, the possibility of so-called data-independent analyses (DIA) via the Zeno SWATH technology is particularly interesting to identify and quantify proteomes from liquid biopsies in sufficient depth via short analyses (~15 minutes) in order to identify new and more specific protein markers for human diseases.

In summary, the Gevaert lab will use the EAD technology for a more comprehensive and a more sensitive analysis of the N-terminoma, and the SWATH-DIA technology for new applications in the field of clinical proteome analysis.