Native mass spectrometry of photosynthetic pigment–protein complexes

AbstractNative mass spectrometry (MS), or as is sometimes called “native electrospray ionization” allows proteins in their native or near-native states in solution to be introduced into the gas phase and interrogated by mass spectrometry. This approach is now a powerful tool to investigate protein complexes. This article reviews the background of native MS of protein complexes and describes its strengths, taking photosynthetic pigment–protein complexes as examples. Native MS can be utilized in combination with other MS-based approaches to obtain complementary information to that provided by tools such as X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy to understand the structure–function relationships of protein complexes. When additional information beyond that provided by native MS is required, other MS-based strategies can be successfully applied to augment the results of native MS