Laser desorption mass spectrometry for microbial DNA analysis

Recently, we demonstrated that a matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer (MALDI-TOF MS) can be used to determine the molecular weight of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products of intact 16S rRNIA regions and to profile their restriction digests. This is the first time that MALDI-TOF MS with ultraviolet (UV) photoionization has been used to analyze a PCR product of similar to 1600 nucleotides in length. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.