About us

Perdita Barran’s Research Group

We develop mass spectrometry based methods and instruments to allow us to look at conformation, conformational change and aggregation. Methods that allow us to preserve non-colvalent protein complexes are also applied to inorganic supramolecular biomimetic systems. We also generate IM-MS data from standard small molecules and proteins that can be used to calibrate TW IM-MS instrumentation.

Our principal areas of research interest are in understanding pre-fibrillar aggregation, intrinsically disordered proteins and how to tame disorder, probing the stability of protein complexes and of model peptide systems.

 

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Contact us

The Barran Group can be contacted as follows: Professor Perdita E. Barran The Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry Manchester Institute of Biotechnology The University of Manchester 131 Princess Street Manchester M1 7DN, UK t: +44 (0) 161 275 0256 e: perdita.barran@manchester.ac.uk The Manchester Institute of Biotechnology is located in the John Garside Building …

Hybrid mass spectrometry methods reveal lot-tolot differences and delineate the effects of glycosylation on the tertiary structure of Herceptin

To quantify the measurable variations in the structure of a biopharmaceutical product we systematically evaluate three lots of Herceptin®, two mAb standards and an intact Fc-hinge fragment. Each mAb is examined in three states; glycan intact, truncated (following endoS2 treatment) and fully deglycosylated. Despite equivalence at the intact protein level, each lot of Herceptin® gives …

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High throughput screening of complex biological samples with mass spectrometry – from bulk measurements to single cell analysis

High throughput screening (HTS) of molecular analytes is in high demand from and implemented in many areas of chemistry, medicine and industrial biotechnology including the discovery of biomarkers and the development of new chemical entities. Despite its prevalence, technical challenges remain in many of the new application areas of HTS which require rapid results from …

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Native mass spectrometry reveals the conformational diversity of the UVR8 photoreceptor

Significance The plant photoreceptor UVR8 absorbs UV-B light to regulate UV protection and photomorphogenic responses in plants. Here we show that UVR8 adopts multiple conformations to generate the signaling active state. The conformational diversity of UVR8 was revealed using a native mass spectrometry approach, where the photoreceptor was photoactivated in the ion source. Our analyses …

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The major secreted protein of the whipworm parasite tethers to matrix and inhibits interleukin-13 function

Infection by soil transmitted parasitic helminths, such as Trichuris spp, are ubiquitous in humans and animals but the mechanisms determining persistence of chronic infections are poorly understood. Here we show that p43, the single most abundant protein in T. murisexcretions/secretions, is non-immunogenic during infection and has an unusual sequence and structure containing subdomain homology to thrombospondin type 1 …

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