Jeff Smith
Department of Chemistry, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Bio-sketch
Dr. Jeff Smith is Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Institute of Biochemistry at Carleton University. He received his BSc from Trent University in 2000 and earned his PhD at York University in 2005. After three years at the Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology at the University of Ottawa, he joined Carleton in 2008, and is currently the Director of the Carleton Mass Spectrometry Centre. His research focusses on the use of mass spectrometry to investigate the biomolecular mechanisms of cellular life.
The Seminar: “Isotopically-labelled TrEnDi: new technology to increase the sensitivity and selectivity of MS-based lipid analysis of complex biological samples”
Carlos R. Canez, Karl V. Wasslen, Hyunmin Lee, Samuel W. J. Shields, Jeffrey M. Manthorpe, Jeffrey C. Smith
Trimethylation enhancement using diazomethane (TrEnDi) is a chemical derivatization strategy that results in the complete and concomitant methylation of phosphate moieties, carboxylic acids and primary amines, rendering phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylcholine (PC), and phosphatidylserine (PS) glycerophospholipids, as well as the sphingolipid sphingomyelin, permanently positively charged. Modified lipids demonstrate enhanced sensitivity via mass spectrometry (MS) analysis, particularly in MS2 experiments where ion fragmentation is consolidated to only one or two channels. One challenge initially encountered by this technique was the conversion of PC and PE molecules of identical chain length to identical (isobaric) lipids. To overcome this, a novel method to synthesize 13C-labelled diazomethane has been developed. Here we demonstrate the sensitivity gains of using isotopically-labelled TrEnDi on complex lipid mixtures.
Date
Date(s) - January 19, 2016
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Emplacement / Location
Morris and Rosalind Goodman Agora