Gas-Phase Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Labeling of Select Peptide Ion Conformer Types: a Per-Residue Kinetics Analysis

The per-residue, gas-phase hydrogen deuterium exchange (HDX) kinetics for individual amino acid residues on selected ion conformer types of the model peptide KKDDDDDIIKIIK have been examined using ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) and HDX-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) techniques. The [M + 4H] 4+ ions exhibit two major conformer types with collision cross sections of 418 Å 2 and 446 Å 2 ; the [M + 3H] 3+ ions also yield two different conformer types having collision cross sections of 340 Å 2 and 367 Å 2 . Kinetics plots of HDX for individual amino acid residues reveal fast- and slow-exchanging hydrogens. The contributions of each amino acid residue to the overall conformer type rate constant have been estimated. For this peptide, N- and C-terminal K residues exhibit the greatest contributions for all ion conformer types. Interior D and I residues show decreased contributions. Several charge state trends are observed. On average, the D residues of the [M + 3H] 3+ ions show faster HDX rate contributions compared with [M + 4H] 4+ ions. In contrast the interior I8 and I9 residues show increased accessibility to exchange for the more elongated [M + 4H] 4+ ion conformer type. The contribution of each residue to the overall uptake rate showed a good correlation with a residue hydrogen accessibility score model calculated using a distance from charge site and initial incorporation site for nominal structures obtained from molecular dynamic simulations (MDS). Graphical Abstract ᅟ