NP/MS since 1970: from the basement to the bench top

This Highlight explores the evolution of applications of mass spectrometric technologies in the context of natural products research since the 1970's. The central themes are the analysis of mixtures, dereplication (identification) and structure determination. The ascension of HPLC as the method of choice for the analysis of pharmaceuticals was a driving force for the development of interfaces for coupling of HPLC and MS. An example of sequential analysis of fragment ions or MS/MS or MSn methods to provide detailed structural information on muraymycins, a family of uridyl-peptide antibiotics, is presented.