Abstract
The ability to sense and respond to various key environmental cues is important for the survival and adaptability of many bacteria, including pathogens. The particular sensitivity of iron-sulfur (Fe-S) clusters is exploited in nature, such that multiple sensor-regulator proteins, which coordinate the detection of analytes with a (in many cases) global transcriptional response, are Fe-S cluster proteins. The fragility and sensitivity of these Fe-S clusters make studying such proteins difficult, and gaining insight of what they sense, and how they sense it and transduce the signal to affect transcription, is a major challenge. While mass spectrometry is very widely used in biological research, it is normally employed under denaturing conditions where non-covalently attached cofactors are lost. However, mass spectrometry under conditions where the protein retains its native structure and, thus, cofactors, is now itself a flourishing field, and the application of such 'native' mass spectrometry to study metalloproteins is now relatively widespread. Here we describe recent advances in using native MS to study Fe-S cluster proteins. Through its ability to accurately measure mass changes that reflect chemistry occurring at the cluster, this approach has yielded a remarkable richness of information that is not accessible by other, more traditional techniques.