Bioanalysis 2 Biomolecules

Bioanalysis may be defined as laboratory analysis of biomolecules. Biomolecules, in turn, are organic compounds with biological activity, generally important only in biological systems, or cells. Biochemistry is the study of structure and function of biomolecules. Biotechnology, a related concept, concerns the industrial applications of biochemical techniques. Thus bioanalysis, biochemistry, and biotechnology are closely related concepts, all concerned primarily with biomolecules. 

It is well known that a great variety of biomolecules exist where metals and metalloids are bound to proteins and peptides, coordinated by nucleic acids or complexed by polysaccharides and small organic ligands such as organic acids.55 Most proteins contain amino acids with covalently bonded heteroelements such as sulphur, selenium, phosphorus or iodine.51 Several reviews have been published on the development of mass spectrometric techniques for bioanalysis in metal-lomics , which integrate work on metalloproteins, metalloenzymes and other metal containing biomolecules.1 51 53 54 56-59 The authors consider trace metals, metalloids, P and S (so-called... 

The detection and quantification of the presence of biomolecules at the surface is based on specific interactions taking place in the evanescent field, generated by the total internal reflectance or by the surface plasmon resonance. The latter is the key transduction principle in the optical bioanalysis and biosensing area (Narayanaswamy and Wolfbeis, 2004). Launched in the early 1980s in Sweden,... 

In order to understand the principles and applications of spectroscopy in bioanalysis it is important to appreciate some fundamental aspects of waves and electromagnetic radiation. At the heart of spectroscopy, spectrometry and spectrophotometry is the interaction of waves of energy (electromagnetic radiation and non-electromagnetic radiation) and matter in a sample to be analysed. Matter will interact with these waves of energy in different ways, and it is this diversity that is important with respect to identiflcation, analysis and characterization of biomolecules in a sample. 

While straight MS analysis can yield important information in terms of identification, characterization and quantification of biomolecules, it becomes a much more powerful tool with further MS or when combined with other separation technologies. As noted earlier, these approaches include MS/MS, GC-MS, LC-MS and CE-MS. These methods have been extensively exploited in virtually all aspects of bioanalysis, and while fundamentally useful for peptide and protein analysis, these methods have also been used in the analysis of lipids, nucleic acids and a wide range of small molecules and drugs. The range of applications is obviously outside the scope of a book like this, but some indications of the uses of each of these techniques are given below. 

Advances in optical biosensors have contributed significantly to the speed of bioanalysis by supplying real-time monitoring of binding reactions, without the need for labeUing of biomolecules (real-time Biointeraction Analysis or BIA). Some of the methods in biosensor technology are based on optical phenomena and can therefore be placed in a spectroscopic context (see Section 14.2.7). Optical biosensors have traditionally been used in a number of proteomics subfields, such... 

Nowadays, partly initiated by the advent of ESI as a powerftrl soft ionization technique for highly polar biomolecules and as a convenient method to couple LC and MS, MS-MS is frequently applied. For routine quantitative bioanalysis of target compounds, the selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode is extensively applied. In the SRM mode, both stages of mass analysis perform the selection of ions with a particular m/z value, i.e., in MSI a precm ior ion, mostly the protonated or... 

Keywords Voltammetry carbon paste, solid amalgam, mercury film, bioanalysis, determination sensing, biomolecules electrode materials... 

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