Native ion mobility mass spectrometry reveals that small organic acid fragments impart gas-phase stability to carbonic anhydrase II.

Binding and subsequent dissociation of acidic fragments from CA II significantly delayed CIU in a manner which is probably analogous to the effect of inorganic anions. Furthermore, we saw a slightly altered stabilising effect between the different fragments investigated in this study. This suggests that the prevention of CIU by organic acids may be tuneable to specific properties of a bound ligand. These observations may open avenues to exploit IM-MS as a screening platform in FBDD.