Hydrogen/deuterium exchange of myoglobin ions in a linear quadrupole ion trap

The hydrogen/deuterium (H/D) exchange of gas-phase ions of holo- and apo-myoglobin has been studied by confining the ions in a linear quadrupole ion trap with D2O or CD3OD at a pressure of several mTorr. Apo-myoglobin ions were formed by collision-induced dissociation of holomyoglobin ions between the orifice and skimmer of the ion sampling system. The exchange takes place on a time scale of seconds. Earlier cross section measurements have shown that holomyoglobin ions can have more compact structures than apo-myoglobin. Despite this, both holomyoglobin and apo-myoglobin in charge states +8 to +14 are found to exchange nearly the same number of hydrogens (ca. 103) in 4 s. It is possible the ions fold or unfold to new conformations on the much longer time scale of the exchange experiment compared with the cross section measurements. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.