Recent developments in mass spectrometry for the characterization of nucleosides, nucleotides, oligonucleotides, and nucleic acids

Nucleic acids and their components play a key role in a variety of fundamental biological processes, and consequently, the study of these species has been at the heart of molecular biology and initiated a wide range of new disciplines over the last two decades. Among these has been the new mass spectrometry techniques for the production of quasimolecular ions of thermally fragile biomolecules. These techniques have provided valuable information on structurally specific biomolecular DNA and RNA interactions. These were essential in establishing direct determinations of stoichiometry for posttranslational modifications for specific DNA-drug, DNA-protein, RNA-protein, and DNA-RNA noncovalent and covalent associations. Progress in the field of MS has established MS as a vital bioanalytic tool in many fields such as functional genomics, proteomics, early drug discovery, and chemical diagnostics.