The long-term goal of this project is to develop miniaturized electrospray ionization (or nanospray) emitters that have enhanced durability and sensitivity versus those currently available. Nanospray mass spectrometry has improved detection limits, requires less sample volume, and uses lower flow rates (resulting in reduced consumption of analyte) than conventional electrospray ionization. However, commercial nanospray emitters which use thin gold films are readily destroyed by electrical discharge. An alternative to gold coatings for nanospray emitters employing conductive polyaniline has been developed at the University at Buffalo (UB). Polyaniline coatings exhibit high resistance to destruction by electrical discharge and retain the sensitivity improvements of nanospray over electrospray. The demonstrated superior durability of polyaniline-coated emitters to current commercial emitters should permit, for the first-time, routine coupling of capillary separations techniques to nanospray. The advantage of such a coupling is that it would permit highly sensitive detection and characterization of biological molecules and drugs directly from complex biological mixtures (e.g., cerebrospinal fluid, blood plasma, etc.). This powerful combination of analytical technologies will have important implications in detection of protein molecules indicative of disease states (e.g., hemoglobin, prealbumin). The immediate objective here is to demonstrate operational capillary electrophoresis and capillary liquid chromatography coupled to nanospray MS using polyaniline-coated emitters, and to produce commercially an integrated capillary column-nanospray emitter unit.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Center for Research Resources (NCRR)
Type
Small Business Innovation Research Grants (SBIR) - Phase II (R44)
Project #
2R44RR016399-02
Application #
6587488
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SSS-6 (10))
Program Officer
Swain, Amy L
Project Start
2001-07-01
Project End
2005-09-29
Budget Start
2003-09-30
Budget End
2004-09-29
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$417,096
Indirect Cost
Name
Nanogenesys, Inc.
Department
Type
DUNS #
156459294
City
Amherst
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
14228
Zhao, Cheng; Jiang, Honghai; Smith, Douglas R et al. (2006) Integration of an on-line protein digestion microreactor to a nanoelectrospray emitter for peptide mapping. Anal Biochem 359:167-75
Zhao, Cheng; Wood, Troy D; Bruckenstein, Stanley (2005) Shifts in protein charge state distributions with varying redox reagents in nanoelectrospray triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. J Am Soc Mass Spectrom 16:409-16