Identification of peptides and proteins in suspected illegal medicinal products using MALDI-TOF-MS
Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation (MALDI) time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) has proven to be an excellent technique for identification of illegally distributed peptides and proteins for human use. The identification of proteins is mainly based on peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) – ie, the bottom-up approach – while the small proteins and…