HIGH MASS RESOLUTION FOR MALDI TOF MASS SPECTROMETRY

离子形成方法的使用，如基质辅助激光 解吸/电离(MALDI)与质谱学(MS)联用 革命性地描述了具有生物学意义的 分子。多发性硬化现在已经成为一项不可或缺的技术 脂类、多肽、蛋白质等大分子的分析 核酸。TOF质量分析仪因其独特的性能而得到广泛应用 简单、准平行检测和理论上无限质量 射程。使用ToF的一个历史缺点是质量峰值较差 分辨率。分辨质量峰的能力对于 用精确质量测量指定峰成分的成功 和结构。我们认为提高MALDI质量的最佳方法 解决办法是将电离和提取从 添加间隙碰撞的加速度和质量分析 冷却阶段。拟议的仪器设计应该会有显著的改进 MALDI质谱图的分辨率。为了进一步提高分辨率和 计时精度和质量测量精度，我们将使用IOnwerks 多通道时间数字转换器(TDC)。这两种技术的结合 多像素探测器和多通道TDC将增加动态 贸发局数据记录仪的范围到它应该与之竞争的程度 瞬变数字化仪，但提供卓越的时间分辨率。 建议的商业应用 MALDI质谱仪在各个方面都得到了广泛而有效的应用 生物分子特征。如果第一阶段成功，我们将 提供具有卓越质量分辨率和质量精度的仪器 到目前可用的仪器设备。我们设想这台仪器 将立即推向生物技术和制药行业 应用广泛的行业，如研究规模的蛋白质 蛋白测定法适用于小规模临床诊断。

The use of ion formation methods such as matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) in tandem with mass spectrometry (MS) has revolutionized the characterization of biologically significant molecules. MS has now become an indispensable technique for the analysis of large molecules such as lipids, peptides, proteins and nucleic acids. The ToF mass analyzer is widely used because of its simplicity, quasi-parallel detection and theoretically unlimited mass range. One historical drawback to the use of ToF is poor mass peak resolving power. The ability to resolve mass peaks is critical to the success of using accurate mass measurement to assign peak composition and structure. We feel the best approach to improving MALDI mass resolution is to decouple the ionization and extraction from acceleration and mass analysis by adding an interstitial collisional cooling stage. The proposed instrument design should markedly improve the resolution of MALDI mass spectra. To further improve resolution and timing accuracy and mass measurement accuracy, we will use the IOnwerks multi-channel time-to-digital converter (TDC). The combination of multi-pixel detector and multi-channel TDC will increase the dynamic range of the TDC data recorder to the point that it should compete with transient digitizers, but provide superior timing resolution. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION MALDI mass spectrometry is widely and effectively used in all aspects of biomolecule characterization. Should Phase I be successful, we will provide an instrument with mass resolution and mass accuracy superior to currently available instrumentation. We envision that the instrument will be immediately marketable to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries with applications as wide ranging as research scale protein scale protein assay to small scale clinical diagnosis.