RapidFire Enhancement of Mass Spectrometry Capability Across the Biosciences

生物科学目前面临的一个主要挑战是利用DNA测序产生的丰富的基因组信息来描述DNA编码蛋白质的功能和结构。然而，虽然基因组测序已经变得非常迅速，但目前还没有方法可以在可比的时间尺度上实验性地确定基因产物的分子细节。因此，我们对生物体中存在什么蛋白质和它们如何协调生命所必需的细胞过程的理解之间的鸿沟正在不断扩大。质谱（MS）是一种革命性的蛋白质实验鉴定和细胞丰度定量方法。在牛津大学，我们开创了许多基于质谱的方法来确定蛋白质的结构、相互作用和动力学，并阐明它们在细胞和整个生物体中的生化作用。然而，我们现在需要能够帮助分析和利用功能的技术，其速度可以与基因组革命产生的数据相媲美。作为实现这一目标的一步，我们建议购买最先进的RapidFire质谱系统，以实现我们在生物过程中准确识别、分析和量化功能的能力的逐步变化。具体来说，RapidFire 365与高分辨率iFunnel6550 QTof质谱相结合，将使多个当前和未来的BBSRC研究人员能够显着提高通量，从而我们可以筛选生物反应超过两个数量级，包括实时分析生物反应。速度的急剧提高将彻底改变我们获得功能分配的能力，并在生化水平上确定操纵生物功能的方法。新的仪器将被整合到牛津大学化学系的专用实验室中，为精心挑选和全面收集的仪器提供新的功能，旨在将质谱应用于化学生物学的前沿。RapidFire MS系统将是真正的多用户，通过经验丰富的工作人员监督的明确的访问路径，使牛津大学和英国的大量研究小组能够通过bbsrc资助的研究。这些仪器将支持跨越一系列BBSRC战略研究重点领域的研究项目，并将成为跨学科生物科学博士培训计划的集成设备，从而使该计划内的其他地点的研究人员可以随时使用，包括牛津布鲁克斯大学和钻石光源。

A major current challenge in biological science is to capitalise on the wealth of genomic information arising from DNA sequencing, to characterise the function and structure of DNA-encoded proteins. However, while genome sequencing has become very rapid, no methods currently exist which can experimentally determine the molecular details of the gene-products on a comparable timescale. As such the gulf between our understanding of what proteins are present in an organism and how they orchestrate the cellular processes necessary to life is ever increasing. Mass spectrometry (MS) is a method that has revolutionised the experimental identification of proteins and quantification of their cellular abundances. In Oxford we have pioneered a number of MS-based approaches to determine the structures, interactions, and dynamics of proteins, and to elucidate their biochemical roles in cells and whole organisms. However, we now need technology that can help analyse and exploit function at a rate comparable to that of data generated by the genomic revolution. As a step towards this, we propose to acquire a state-of-the-art RapidFire MS system to enable a step-change in the rate of our ability to accurately identify, analyse and quantify function in biological processes.Specifically, the RapidFire 365 coupled to a high resolution iFunnel6550 QTof MS, will enable multiple current and future BBSRC researchers to dramatically increase the throughput at which we can screen biological reactions by over two orders of magnitude, including the analysis of biological reactions in real time. The dramatic increase in speed will revolutionise our ability to obtain functional assignments and identify ways to manipulate biological function on a biochemical level. The new instrumentation will be integrated into dedicated laboratories in the Department of Chemistry in Oxford, providing new capabilities within the context of a carefully selected and comprehensive collection of instruments aimed at applying MS to the frontiers of chemical biology. The RapidFire MS system will be genuinely multi-user, enabling BBSRC-funded research by a large number of research groups in Oxford and the UK, through well-defined access routes overseen by experienced staff. The instruments will support research projects spanning a range of BBSRC strategic research priority areas, and will become an integrated piece of equipment in the Interdisciplinary Biosciences Doctoral Training Programme, thus making it readily available to researchers at other sites within this programme including Oxford Brookes University and the Diamond Light Source.