Strategies for Top–Down Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange-Mass Spectrometry: A Mini Review and Perspective

Hydrogen deuterium-exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) is commonly used in the study of protein dynamics and protein interactions. By measuring the isotopic exchange of backbone amide hydrogens in solution, HDX-MS offers valuable structural insights into challenging biological systems. Traditional HDX-MS approaches utilize bottom–up (BU) proteomics, in which deuterated proteins are digested before MS analysis. BU-HDX enables the characterization of proteins with various sizes in simple protein mixtures or complex biological samples such as cell lysates. However, BU methods are inherently limited by the inability to resolve protein sub-populations arising from different protein conformations, such as those arising from post-translational modifications (PTMs). Alternatively, top–down (TD) HDX-MS detects the global deuterium uptake at the intact proteoform level, allowing direct probing of structural changes due to protein–protein interactions, PTMs, or conformational changes. Combining TD-HDX-MS with electron-based fragmentation techniques, such as electron capture dissociation (ECD) and electron transfer dissociation (ETD), has demonstrated the feasibility of studying intact protein interactions with amino acid-level resolution. Here, we present a brief overview of methodologies, limitations, and applications of TD-HDX-MS using direct infusion techniques and LC-based approaches. Furthermore, we conclude with a perspective on the future directions for TD-HDX-MS.