Ion Mobility Separation Using a Dual-LIT Miniature Mass Spectrometer

Abstract

Ion mobility (IM) has been increasingly used in combination with mass spectrometry (MS) for chemical and biological analysis. While implementation of IM with MS usually requires complex instrumentation with delicate controls, in this study we explored the potential of performing IM separation using dual-linear ion traps (LITs) in a miniature mass spectrometer, which was originally developed for performing comprehensive MS/MS scan functions with a simple instrumentation configuration. The IM separation was achieved by ion transfer between the LITs with dynamic gas flow. Its performance was characterized for analysis of a broad range of chemical and biological compounds including small organic compounds such as trisaccharides, raffinose, cellotriose, and melezitose, as well as protein conformers. The demonstrated technique serves as another example of developing powerful hybrid instrument functions with simple configurations and miniaturized sizes.

Mass Spectrometry-Based Human Breath Analysis: Towards COVID-19 Diagnosis and Research

“…Prospects of MS-based breath analysis are bright: (1) breath EBA sampling (e.g., facemask microextraction sampling) coupled with portable MS approaches, potable GC–MS or potable ambient MS (e.g., miniature MS [ 102 , 103 ]) could provide attractive onsite diagnosis; (2) detectability of MS-based breath analysis could be further improved by a long-time breath sampling and sample preparation methods by collecting VOCs, organic metabolites, proteins, microorganisms, and elements; e.g . , extracting trace compounds in daily life using facemask-related methods; (3) combining different MS approaches (e.g., ultrasensitive and ultrahigh-resolution MS) to establish a higher dimensional MS-based platform is highly needed to extend insight to biologically and clinically relevant breath responses of COVID-19; (4) to promote deep understanding of the health impact of COVID-19, new data-dependent acquisition and data analysis methods can be expected with the new development of big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other mathematical methods.…”

Rapid 3-dimensional shape determination of globular proteins by mobility capillary electrophoresis and native mass spectrometry

“…43 Recently, ion mobility spectroscopy (IMS), especially the coupling of IMS with MS, has been increasingly applied in ion structure analysis. [44][45][46][47] IMS is a gas-phase technique, which separates ions based on their collision cross sections (CCSs) in the gas phase. With acceptable resolutions, the analysis speed of IMS is typically fast (sub second).…”

Recent advances in on-site mass spectrometry analysis for clinical applications

“…4 c, the protonated imatinib, m/z 494 and m/z 502, were sequentially transferred from LIT 1 to LIT 2, during which beam-type MS/MS analysis was performed to obtain the fragment ion, m/z 394. Additionally, using a dynamic gas flow introduced by the discontinuous atmospheric pressure interface (DAPI), the dual-LIT system could perform ion mobility analysis by using the existing mass analyzers without complicating the overall instrument configuration [ 81 ]. Conformers of cytochrome c ions at different charge states were separated according to their collisional cross-sections ( Fig.…”

“…Reprinted from Ref. [ 81 ] with permission from American Chemical Society. (e) Schematic of the Mini 14 system with intelligent adaptability for on-site and POC analysis.…”