Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. It is most generally used to find the composition of a physical sample by generating a mass spectrum representing the masses of sample components. The technique has several applications, including:
A mass spectrometer is a device used for mass spectrometry, and produces a mass spectrum of a sample to find its composition. This is normally achieved by ionizing the sample and separating ions of differing masses and recording their relative abundance by measuring intensities of ion flux. A typical mass spectrometer comprises three parts: an ion source, a mass analyzer, and a detector.
This example was of a sector instrument, however there are many types of mass spectrometers that not only analyze the ions differently but produce different types of ions; however they all use electric and magnetic fields to change the path of ions in some way.
Techniques for ionization have been key to determining what types of samples can be analyzed by mass spectrometry. Electron ionization and chemical ionization are used for gases and vapors. In chemical ionization sources, the analyte is ionized by chemical ion-molecule reactions during collisions in the source. Two techniques often used with liquid and solid biological samples include electrospray ionization (due to John Fenn) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI, due to M. Karas and F. Hillenkamp). Inductively coupled plasma sources are used primarily for metal analysis on a wide array of samples types. Others include fast atom bombardment (FAB), thermospray, atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and thermal ionisation.
where F is the force applied to the ion, m is the mass of the ion, a is the acceleration, q is the ionic charge, E is the electric field, and v x B is the vector cross product of the ion velocity and the magnetic field
Using Newton's third law of motion yields:
This differential equation is the classic equation of motion of charged particles. Together with the particles' initial conditions it completely determines the particles motion in space and time and therefore is the basis of every mass spectrometer. It immediately reveals that two particles with the same physical quantity m/q behave exactly the same. Thus all mass spectrometers actually measure m/q and strictly speaking should be called mass-to-charge spectrometers. When presenting data, it is common to use the (officially) dimensionless m/z (called mass-to-charge ratio, although (more accurately) it represents the ratio of the mass number and the charge number), where z is the number of elementary charges (e) on the ion (z=q/e).
There are many types of mass analyzers, using either static or dynamic fields, and magnetic or electric fields, but all operate according to this same law. Each analyzer type has its strengths and weaknesses. Many mass spectrometers use two or more mass analyzers for tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). In addition to the more common mass analyzers listed below, there are other less common ones designed for special situations.
It uses an electric and/or magnetic field to affect the path and/or velocity of the charged particles in some way. As shown above, sector instruments change the direction of ions that are flying through the mass analyzer. The ions enter a magnetic or electric field which bends the ion paths depending on their mass-to-charge ratios, deflecting the more charged and faster-moving, lighter ions more. The ions eventually reach the detector and their relative abundances are measured. The analyzer can be used to select a narrow range of m/z's or to scan through a range of m/z's to catalog the ions present.
Besides the original magnetic-sector analyzers, several other types of analyzer are now more common, including time-of-flight, quadrupole ion trap, quadrupole and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass analyzers.
Perhaps the easiest to understand is the Time-of-flight (TOF) analyzer. It uses an electric field to accelerate the ions through the same potential, and then measures the time they take to reach the detector. If the particles all have the same charge, then their kinetic energies will be identical, and their velocities will depend only on their masses. Lighter ions will reach the detector first.
Quadrupole mass analyzers use oscillating electrical fields to selectively stabilize or destabilize ions passing through a radio frequency (RF) quadrupole field. A quadrupole acts as a mass selective filter. A common variation of the quadrupole is the triple quadrupole.
The quadrupole ion trap works on the same physical principles as the QMS, but the ions are trapped and sequentially ejected. Ions are created and trapped in a mainly quadrupole RF potential and separated by m/z, non-destructively or destructively.
There are many mass/charge separation and isolation methods but most commonly used is the mass instability mode in which the RF potential is ramped so that the orbit of ions with a mass are stable while ions with mass become unstable and are ejected on the z-axis onto a detector.
Ions may also be ejected by the resonance excitation method, whereby a supplemental oscillatory excitation voltage is applied to the endcap electrodes, and the trapping voltage amplitude and/or excitation voltage frequency is varied to bring ions into a resonance condition in order of their mass/charge ratio.
The cylindrical ion trap mass spectrometer is a derivative of the quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer.
Fourier transform mass spectrometry, or more precisely Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance MS, measures mass by detecting the image current produced by ions cyclotroning in the presence of a magnetic field. Instead of measuring the deflection of ions with a detector such as a electron multiplier, the ions are injected into a Penning trap (a static electric/magnetic ion trap) where they effectively form part of a circuit. Detectors at fixed positions in space measure the electrical signal of ions which pass near them over time producing cyclical signal. Since the frequency of an ion's cycling is determined by its mass to charge ratio, this can be deconvoluted by performing a Fourier transform on the signal. FTMS has the advantage of high sensitivity (since each ion is 'counted' more than once) and much high resolution and thus precision.
Ion cyclotron resonance is an older mass analysis technique similar to FTMS except that ions are detected with a traditional detector. Ions trapped in a Penning trap are excited by an RF electric field until they impact the wall of the trap where the detector is located with ions of different mass being resolved in time.
Orbitraps are the most recently introduced mass analysers (commercially available since 2005). Ions are electrostatically trapped in an orbit around a central, spindle-shaped electrode. They perform two kinds of movements in parallel: First, they cycle in an orbit around the central electrode. Second, they also move back and forth along the axis of the central electrode. Thus, the ion movement resembles a ring that oscillates along the axis of the spindle.
This oscillation generates an image current in detector plates which is recorded. The frequencies of these image currents depend on the mass to charge ratios of the ions in the Orbitrap. Mass spectra are obtained by Fourier transformation of the recorded image currents.
Similar to Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometers, Orbitraps have a high mass accuracy, high sensitivity and a good dynamic range.
Typically, some types of electron multiplier is used, though other detectors (such as Faraday cups) have been used. Because the number of ions leaving the mass analyzer at a particular instant is typically quite small, significant amplification is often necessary to get a signal. Microchannel Plate Detectors are commonly used in modern commercial instruments. In FTMS and Orbitraps, the detector consists of a pair of metal surfaces within the mass analyzer/ion trap region which the ions only pass near as they oscillate. No DC current is produced, only a weak AC image current is produced in a circuit between the electrodes.
A common form of mass spectrometry is gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS or GC-MS). In this technique, a gas chromatograph is used to separate compounds. This stream of separated compounds is fed on-line into the ion source, a metallic filament to which voltage is applied. This filament emits electrons which ionize the compounds. The ions can then further fragment, yielding predictable patterns. Intact ions and fragments pass into the mass spectrometer's analyser and are eventually detected.
Similar to gas chromatography MS (GC/MS), liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC/MS or LC-MS) separates compounds chromatographically before they are introduced to the ion source and mass spectrometer. It differs from GC/MS in that the mobile phase is liquid, usually a combination of water and organic solvents, instead of gas. Most commonly, an electrospray ionization source is used in LC/MS.
The drift time is a measure of the radius relative to the charge of the ion. The duty cycle of IMS (time over which the experiment takes place) is longer than most mass spectrometers such that the mass spectrometer can sample along the course of the IMS separation. This produces data about the IMS separation and the mass-to-charge ratio of the ions in a manner similar to LC/MS.
The duty cycle of IMS is short relative to liquid chromatography or gas chromatography separations and can thus be coupled to such techniques producing triply hyphenated techniques such as LC/IMS/MS.
(The above should not be confused with the mass spectrometry technique for inorganic isotope analysis which uses a Tandem van de Graaff Accelerator. In this case "tandem accelerator" means a large nuclear particle accelerator operating at several million volts with two stages operating in tandem to accelerate the particles. This is particularly used for isotope ratio analysis of cosmogenic isotopes such as Be-10, Cl-36, Al-26 and C-14.)
Certain types of mass spectrometry data are best represented as a mass chromatogram. Types of chromatograms include selected ion monitoring (SIM), total ion current (TIC), and selected reaction monitoring chromatogram (SRM), among many others.
Other types of mass spectrometry data are well represented as a contour map of mass-to-charge on one axis, intensity on another and an additional experimental parameter (often time) on the third axis, thus producing a three dimensional surface.
Basics
Mass spectrometry data analysis is a complicated subject matter that is very specific to the type of experiment producing the data. There are several general subdivisions of data that are fundamental to beginning to understand any data. Some questions relevant to understanding MS data are:
Is the data positive ion mode or negative ion mode data?
What ion source is being used?
Is this an MS/MS spectrum?
What is the origin of the sample?
How was the sample prepared? How was it run/introduced?
What are you trying to achieve?
Exposure dating is a technique used to find an estimated time for which an object has been on the surface of the Earth. A mass spectrometer is able to measure the ratio of these radio-isotopes to that of the stable isotope, this ratio is then used to find the absolute amount of radio-isotope in the object. The absolute amount of radio-isotope is directly proportional to the time it has spent on the surface, making it possible to find the amount of time the object has been exposed once the rate of production for a radio-isotope is known.
Burial dating, another technique involving cosmogenic nuclides, estimates the length of burial of an object. For this technique the object is assumed to have been at the surface of the Earth for some time before it becomes buried. If the amount of time an object was at the surface prior to burial is known, an initial quantity of radio-isotopes may be assumed. All radio-isotopes decay in the same fashion and the half lives of all are known, which allows the two known chemical concentrations at two different times to be placed into equations that give the length of time the object was buried. Using the chemical composition of the sample, it is possible to find the amount of radio-isotope left in the object after burial.
There is currently considerable interest in the use of mass spectrometry for microdosing studies, which are seen as a promising alternative to animal experimentation.
Whole protein mass analysis is primarily conducted using either time-of-flight (TOF) MS, or Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR). These two types of instrument are preferable here because of their wide mass range, and in the case of FT-ICR, its high mass accuracy. Mass analysis of proteolytic peptides is a much more popular method of protein characterization, as cheaper instrument designs can be used for characterization. Additionally, sample preparation is easier once whole proteins have been digested into smaller peptide fragments. The most widely used instrument for peptide mass analysis is the quadrupole ion trap. Multiple stage quadrupole-time-of-flight and MALDI time-of-flight instruments also find use in this application.
To contend with this problem, two methods are widely used to fractionate proteins, or their peptide products from an enzymatic digestion. The first method fractionates whole proteins and is called two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. The second method, high performance liquid chromatography is used to fractionate peptides after enzymatic digestion. In some situations, it may be necessary to combine both of these techniques.
Gel spots identified on a 2D Gel are usually attributable to one protein. If the identity of the protein is desired, the gel spot can be excised, and digested proteolytically. The peptide masses resulting from the digestion can be determined by mass spectrometry using peptide mass fingerprinting. If this information does not allow unequivocal identification of the protein, its peptides can be subject to tandem mass spectrometry.
Characterization of protein mixtures using HPLC/MS is also called shotgun proteomics and mudpit. A peptide mixture that results from digestion of a protein mixture is fractionated by one or two steps of liquid chromatography. The eluent from the chromatography stage can be either directly introduced to the mass spectrometer through electrospray ionization, or laid down on a series of small spots for later mass analysis using MALDI.
Tandem MS is becoming a more popular experimental method for identifying proteins. Collision-induced dissociation is used in mainstream applications to generate a set of fragments from a specific peptide ion. The fragmentation process primarily gives rise to cleavage products that break along peptide bonds. Because of this simplicity in fragmentation, it is possible to use the observed fragment masses to match with a database of predicted masses for one of many given peptide sequences. Tandem MS of whole protein ions has been investigated recently using electron capture dissociation and has demonstrated extensive sequence information in principle but is not in common practice. This is sometimes referred to as the "top-down" approach in that it involves starting with the whole mass and then pulling it apart rather than starting with pieces (proteolytic fragments) and piecing the protein back together using De novo repeat detection (bottom-up).
In 1886, Eugen Goldstein observed "rays" that traveled through the channels of a perforated cathode in a low pressure gas discharge and moved toward the anode, in the opposite direction to the negatively charged cathode rays. Goldstein called these positively charged anode rays "Kanalstrahlen" or canal rays. Wilhelm Wien found that strong electric or magnetic fields deflected the canal rays and, in 1899, constructed a device with parallel electric and magnetic fields that separated the positive rays according to their charge-to-mass ratio (e/m). Wien found that the charge-to-mass ratio depended on the nature of the gas in the discharge tube. English scientist J.J. Thomson later improved on the work of Wilhelm Wien by reducing the pressure to create a mass spectrograph. The processes that more directly gave rise to the modern version of the mass spectrometer were devised by Arthur Jeffrey Dempster and F.W. Aston in 1918 and 1919 respectively.
In 2002, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was received by John Fenn for the development of electrospray ionization (ESI) and Koichi Tanaka for the development of soft laser desorption (SLD) in 1987. An improved SLD method, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI), was developed by Franz Hillenkamp and Michael Karas in 1987.
Mass spectrometry | Measuring instruments
Massespektrometer | Massenspektrometrie | Mas-spektrogramo | Spectrométrie de masse | Mas-spektrogramo | 質量分析法 | Massaspectrometrie | Spektrometria mas | Масс-спектрометрия | Massaspektrometri | 质谱
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