Significant increase in the efficiency and speed of MS-based tissue imaging (IMS) performed at atmospheric conditions using high-resolution mass spectrometer will have a profound impact on method applications to the entire analytical field of characterization of biomarkers in tissues. At present, the efficiency of the MS-based tissue imaging is limited by low sensitivity. We propose to employ a separate post-ionization step to increase the ion yield from the material ablated by laser from the tissues. To demonstrate high-throughput IMS analysis based on the proposed post-ionization technique, we plan to modify the house-built compact UV laser system capable of generation high-intensity laser pulses at very high repetition rate.
Mass spectrometry (MS) analysis of tissues is currently used for profiling of known or search for new biomarkers in cancer-related studies. We plan to develop a novel method that significantly improves sensitivity, dynamics range, and throughput of MS-based tissue imaging. This high-throughput method will operate at atmospheric conditions and can be also applied for a characterization of proteins in 2D gels.
| Moskovets, Eugene (2015) Ghost peaks observed after atmospheric pressure matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization experiments may disclose new ionization mechanism of matrix-assisted hypersonic velocity impact ionization. Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom 29:1501-12 |
