Capillary electrophoresis hyphenated to inductively coupled plasma-sector field-mass spectrometry for the stoichiometric determination of Zn bound to Aeromonas hydrophila Zn beta-lactamase

A method was developed for the determination of the stoichiometric Zn/protein ratio for the Aeromonas hydrophila metallo beta-lactamase AE036. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) was used to separate free Zn ions from the Zn bound to the metalloprotein, the only Zn-species which is biochemically relevant. An inductively coupled plasma-sector field-mass spectrometer (ICP-SF-MS), operated at a mass resolution of 3000, was used as an element-specific detector. If the primary structure of the protein and thus the number of sulfur-containing amino acids is known, as is the case for Aeromonas hydrophila Zn beta-lactamase, monitoring of both Zn and S with ICP-SF-MS permits the Zn/protein ratio to be determined. The method was optimised in order to obtain short migration times (less than 10 min) for the metallo beta-lactamase and for standards with bare fused silica capillaries. After optimisation, a 75 mmol L−1 bis-Tris background electrolyte buffered at a pH of 6.75 was used for the separation, a voltage of 30 kV was applied over a capillary with a total length of approximately 70 cm and the sample was introduced hydrodynamically at 1000 mbar s. Quantitative results (stoichiometric Zn/protein ratio of 1 and 2, before and after saturation of the enzyme with Zn, respectively) were obtained using external calibration with albumin as a S standard and ZnCl2 as a Zn standard. The method was also demonstrated to be precise with < 5% RSD on the Zn/protein ratio for n = 3. An absolute limit of detection of 8 ng of A. hydrophila Zn beta-lactamase (calculated on the basis of sulfur) was obtained under these conditions.