Ion mobility-mass spectrometry and orthogonal gas-phase techniques to study amyloid formation and inhibition

Amyloidogenic peptide oligomers are responsible for a variety of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Due to their dynamic, polydisperse, and polymorphic nature, these oligomers are very challenging to characterize using traditional condensed-phase methods. In the last decade, ion mobility – mass spectrometry (IM-MS) and related gas-phase techniques have emerged as a powerful alternative to disentangle the structure and assembly characteristics of amyloid forming systems. This review highlights recent advances in which IM-MS was used to characterize amyloid oligomers and their underlying assembly pathway. In addition, we summarize recent studies in which IM-MS was used to size- and mass-select species for a further spectroscopic investigation and outline the potential of IM-MS as a tool for the screening of amyloid inhibitors