Pulsed HDX was conducted under “exchange-in” conditions
using a three-syringe, two-stage continuous-flow setup. The details
of the device have been described in our previous publication [29].
For HDX of free CAII, syringe 1 contains 25 M CAII and 10 M
bradykinin in 10 mM NH4HCO3 at pH 7.8. Syringe 2 contains 10 mM
NH4HCO3 in D2O at pHread 7.8. The pH of the deuterated buffer
was adjusted with deuterated ammonium hydroxide. The flow
rates of the two syringes were 2 and 8 L/min, respectively. After
the first mixing step, the solution goes into a 57 cm long capillary
with an i.d. of 150 m. This corresponds to an average HDX
time of 60 s. At the second mixing tee, the labeled protein is mixed
with the outflow (20 L/min) from syringe 3, which contained
10% MeOH/MeOD (1/4) and 90% H2O/D2O (1/4) with 0.4% formic
acid. The deuterium content in the quenching solution was kept
the same as in the labeling solution to ensure that the level of
side chain deuteration is constant throughout all of the mixing
sequences, which ensures that the number of acquired deuteriums
on both amides and side chains can be calibrated to 100%
D2O during data analysis, using the same deuteration percentage
of bradykinin. Note that the use of methanol here instead of acetonitrile
[29] enhances the electrospray signal substantially. The
final solution, after the second mixing tee, flows directly into the
mass spectrometer through a 9 cm long ESI capillary (i.d. 100 m).
The residence time of the labeled protein under quench conditions
was 1.4 s. This short quenching time results in an amide
back-exchange level less of than 1% [4]. From the HDX point of
view, the quenching step in the top-down approach is unnecessary.
However, the enhanced denaturation of the tertiary noncovalent
structure and the protonation of proteins under acidic conditions
facilitates the subsequent ECD fragmentation, thereby significantly
increasing the spatial resolution of the HDX-MS measurements. In
the drug-binding experiments, syringe 1 contained both CAII and
FSM, at a concentration of 25 M each. The HDX experiments were
carried out using the same online mixing setup described above,
except that the labeling time was shortened to 10 s. This labeling
time produced the largest difference between the drug-free and the
drug-bound states.