System for determining amino acid sequence of polypeptide

Abstract

This invention discloses systems and methods for determining the sequence of amino acids in a short peptide chain that constructs a protein. The protein is firstly hydrolyzed to various short peptides and amino acid enantiomers. Then, the systems and method are used to separate the short peptides and the amino acid enantiomers, identify qualitatively each of the amino acid enantiomers, and obtain the molecular mass signal for each of the peptides. After that, the identified amino acid enantiomers are used to construct any possible short peptides in an order from the smallest molecular weight dipeptide to higher molecular weight short peptides, and the correct short peptides is confirmed by matching the molecular weight obtained from the mass spectrometry measurement, then, the short peptides are combined to give a large peptide. The process is continued until the whole amino acid sequence of the peptide chain of protein can be determined.