A new Orbitrap-based ion analysis procedure is shown to be possible by determining the direct charge for numerous individual protein ions to generate true mass spectra. The deployment of an Orbitrap system for charge detection enables the characterization of highly complicated mixtures of proteoforms and their complexes in both denatured and native modes of operation, revealing information not obtainable by traditional measurement of an ensemble of ions.

Charge detection mass spectrometry (CDMS) is a single-particle technique where the masses of individual ions are determined from simultaneous measurement of each ion's mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) and charge. CDMS has many desirable features: it has no upper mass limit, no mass discrimination, and it can analyze complex mixtures. However, the charge is measured directly, and the poor accuracy of the charge measurement has severely limited the mass resolution achievable with CDMS. Since the charge is quantized, it needs to be measured with sufficient accuracy to assign each ion to its correct charge state. This goal has now been largely achieved. By reducing the pressure to extend the trapping time and by implementing a novel analysis method that improves the signal-to-noise ratio and compensates for imperfections in the charge measurement, the uncertainty has been reduced to less than 0.20 e rmsd (root-mean-square deviation). With this unprecedented precision peaks due to different charge states are resolved in the charge spectrum. Further improvement can be achieved by quantizing the charge (rounding the measured charge to the nearest integer) and culling ions with measured charges midway between the integral values. After ions with charges more than one standard deviation from the mean are culled, the fraction of ions assigned to the wrong charge state is estimated to be 6.4 × 10(-5) (i.e., less than 1 in 15 000). Since almost all remaining ions are assigned to their correct charge state, the uncertainty in the mass is now almost entirely limited by the uncertainty in the m/z measurement.

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Protocol for sample preparation, instrumental settings, and processing for the individual ion mass spectrometry method (I2MS) utilizing an Orbitrap analyzer.

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