MRI: Acquisition of a Trapped Ion Mobility Spectrometer Quadrupole Time-of-Flight (TIMS-QTOF) with MALDI for Multidisciplinary Research and Education

该提案旨在获得具有矩阵辅助激光解吸/电离（MALDI）的最先进的捕获离子迁移谱（TIMS）飞行时间（TOF） fleX。该仪器具有几个独特的功能：1)TIM分离允许分离异构体化合物。这些化合物分子式相同，但化学性质不同；2) TOF能够进行全质谱分析，并能够分离质量差异小至0.001原子质量单位的物种；3)质谱成像是无标签的，同时提供数千种分子物种的非靶向分析，提供极低的检测限制，并提供空间制图。该仪器的能力将使项目团队能够填补知识空白，并解决各种科学领域的紧迫挑战：环境监测和补救、生物、化学、生化和生物医学科学。获得这一工具将加强三个机构和纽约首都地区的沃兹沃斯中心及其他地方的研究。除了通过新的发现和深入的科学努力造福社会外，这台仪器还将用于教育和培训本科生和研究生，并向公众、K-12教育工作者和学生提供服务。拟议的仪器将解决至少10名研究人员在多个研究领域面临的关键挑战。这得益于该仪器在化学复杂微环境中可视化分子的革命性能力，以及提供定量成分和结构分析的能力。这些能力将为口腔微生物群落、口腔生物膜、真菌代谢组和蛋白质组、RNA修饰和表转录组等相关研究带来改变游戏规则的发现。在环境影响分析和补救中，该仪器将用于检测和量化全氟和多氟物质（PFAS）的异构体，并在不同的环境基质中对这些化合物进行有针对性的筛选和非目标分析。在糖组学领域，碳水化合物的完整结构表征是表征结构-功能关系以及生物医学应用的长期分析需求。所提出的设备允许有信心的异构体分化和结构阐明，并提供了一个敏感和快速的聚糖概况的复杂糖蛋白混合物。关于果蝇与寄生蜂的相互作用，即宿主蝇对另一种昆虫的免疫反应，侵染寄生蜂在很大程度上是未知的。获得的仪器将能够深入了解蛋白质水平的变化，并通过MALDI成像定位细胞免疫反应。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This proposal seeks to acquire a state-of-the-art Trapped Ion Mobility Spectrometry (TIMS) Time of Flight (TOF) fleX with Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization (MALDI). This instrument offers several unique capabilities: 1) TIM separation allows separating isomeric compounds. These compounds have the same molecular formula, but different chemical properties; 2) TOF enables full mass-spectrum analysis and is able to separate species that differ in mass by as little as 0.001 atomic mass unit; and 3) Mass Spectrometry Imaging is label free, provides untargeted analysis of thousands of molecular species simultaneously, offers extremely low limits of detection, and provides spatial mapping. The capability of this instrument will allow the project team to fill knowledge gaps and tackle pressing challenges in a wide range of scientific fields: environmental monitoring and remediation, biological, chemical, biochemical, and biomedical sciences. Access to this instrument will strengthen research at three Institutions and the Wadsworth Center at the Capital Region of New York and beyond. Besides benefiting the society through new discoveries and deep scientific endeavors, this instrument will be used for educating and training undergraduate and graduate students and outreach to the general public, and K-12 educators and students. The proposed instrument will address critical challenges faced by at least ten researchers in multiple fields of research. This is enabled by the instrument’s revolutionary capabilities in visualizing molecules in chemically complex microenvironments and providing quantitative compositional and structural analyses. These capabilities will bring game-changing discoveries in research related to oral microbial community, dental biofilm, fungal metabolome and proteome, RNA modifications, and epitranscriptome. In environmental impact analysis and remediation, this instrument will be used to detect and quantify isomers of per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) and perform targeted screening and non-target analysis of these compounds in different environmental matrices. In the field of glycomics, the full structural characterization of carbohydrates is a standing analytical need in the characterization of structure-function relationships as well as biomedical applications. The proposed equipment permits confident isomer differentiation and structure elucidation and provides a sensitive and rapid overview of glycan profiles for complex glycoprotein mixtures. With respect to the Drosophila -parasitoid wasp interaction, the immune response of the host fly to another insect, the infecting wasp is largely unknown. The acquired instrument would enable deep understanding of changes at protein levels and localizing the cellular immune response through MALDI imaging.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.