《生命科学》 2014, 26(3): 261-269

RNA的质谱分析研究进展

彭　超，黄超兰^*

(中国科学院上海生命科学研究院生物化学与细胞生物学研究所，国家蛋白质科学中心，上海 201210)

摘　要：核糖核酸(RNA) 是一类重要的遗传物质，在生物体内起着至关重要的作用。传统的RNA 测序鉴定技术既费时又费力，而且会丢失大量的RNA 转录后修饰等方面的信息。随着近年来仪器的更新和技术的飞速发展，质谱技术在生物大分子研究方向得到了很好的应用，特别是基于质谱技术的蛋白质组学。相比蛋白质组学的研究来说，基于质谱技术的RNA 鉴定分析更为困难，发展相对缓慢。但是，硬件方面的革新和软件方面的开发也为其发展带来了很好的契机。重点通过对质谱技术在RNA 分析鉴定的介绍，从样品制备、离子化方式、碎裂方式、分析方法、数据后处理软件等几个方面展现了基于质谱技术的RNA研究进展。

The developments of RNA analysis using MS technology

PENG Chao， Catherine C.L. Wong^*

(National Center for Protein Science (Shanghai)， Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology， Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences， Chinese Academy of Sciences， Shanghai 201210， China)

Abstract: Ribonucleic acids (RNA) are transcribed from unannotated genomic regions and many of them play an important role in a variety of cellular processes，such as chromatin remodeling， transcriptional regulation， precursor messenger， etc. The conventional bicochemical tool for analysis of RNA species is time consuming and often infective for characterizing modified RNA. Due to inefficient ionization of the gas-phase ions， MS has been less frequently used for RNA analysis than it has been for protein research. Recent technical improvements in both instrumentation and software make MS a powerful tool for RNA analysis because it can now be used to sequence， quantify， and chemically analyze oligonucleotides and intact nucleic acid. This review focuses on the principle of the MS-based RNA studies to give a view of RNA analysis using mass spectrometry， such as， sample preparation， ionization， software for data analysis.