773 results about "Mass spectrometry imaging" patented technology

Fast and highly accurate mass spectrometry-based processes for detecting a particular nucleic acid sequence in a biological sample are provided. Depending on the sequence to be detected, the processes can be used, for example, to diagnose a genetic disease or chromosomal abnormality; a predisposition to a disease or condition, infection by a pathogenic organism, or for determining identity or heredity.

Disclosed is an apparatus for performing mass spectrometry and a method of analyzing a sample through mass spectrometry. In particular, the disclosure relates to an apparatus capable of ambient mass spectrometry and mass spectral imaging and a method for the same. The apparatus couples laser ablation, flowing atmospheric-pressure afterglow ionization, and a mass spectrometer.

Methods to detect, screen, and quantitate biological samples after administration of antibody conjugates, antibody-drug conjugates of Formula I, antibodies, and fragments and metabolites thereof, by affinity separation, chromatography, and mass spectrometry are disclosed.

Ab-(L-D)_p   I

wherein Ab is an antibody; D is a drug moiety; L is a linker covalently attached to Ab, and covalently attached to D; and p is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8;

The present invention is directed to a method for separating, characterizing and/or identifying microorganisms in a test sample. The method of the invention comprises an optional lysis step for lysing non-microorganism cells that may be present in a test sample, followed by a subsequent separation step. The method may be useful for the separation, characterization and/or identification of microorganisms from complex samples such as blood-containing culture media. The invention further provides for interrogation of the separated microorganism sample by mass spectrometry to produce a mass spectrum of the microorganism and characterizing and/or identifying the microorganism in the sample using the mass spectrum obtained.

Apparatus and methods are provided that enable the interaction of low-energy electrons and positrons with sample ions to facilitate electron capture dissociation (ECD) and positron capture dissociation (PCD), respectively, within multipole ion guide structures. It has recently been discovered that fragmentation of protonated ions of many biomolecules via ECD often proceeds along fragmentation pathways not accessed by other dissociation methods, leading to molecular structure information not otherwise easily obtainable. However, such analyses have been limited to expensive Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometers; the implementation of ECD within commonly-used multipole ion guide structures is problematic due to the disturbing effects of RF fields within such devices. The apparatus and methods described herein successfully overcome such difficulties, and allow ECD (and PCD) to be performed within multipole ion guides, either alone, or in combination with conventional ion fragmentation methods. Therefore, improved analytical performance and functionality of mass spectrometers that utilize multipole ion guides are provided.

The invention provides devices, device configurations and methods for improved sensitivity, resolution and efficiency in mass spectrometry, particularly as applied to biological molecules, including biological polymers, such as proteins and nucleic acids. More particularly, the invention provides methods and devices for analyzing and detecting electrically charged particles, especially suitable for gas phase ions generated from high molecular weight compounds. In one aspect, the invention provides devices and methods for determining the velocity, charged state or both of electrically charged particles and packets of electrically charged particles. In another aspect, the invention provides methods and devices for the time-of-flight analysis of electrically charged particles comprising spatially collimated sources. In another aspect, the invention relates to multiple detection using inductive detectors, improved methods of signal averaging and charged particle detection in coincidence.

A method for fragmentation of analyte ions for mass spectroscopy and a system for mass spectroscopy. The method produces gas-phase analyte ions, produces gas-phase radical species separately from the analyte ions, and mixes the gas-phase analyte ions and the radical species at substantially atmospheric pressure conditions to produce fragment ions prior to introduction into a mass spectrometer. The system includes a gas-phase analyte ion source, a gas-phase radical species source separate from the gas-phase analyte ion source, a mixing region where the gas-phase analyte ions and the radical species are mixed at substantially atmospheric pressure to produce fragment ions of the analyte ions, a mass spectrometer having an entrance where at least a portion of the fragment ions are introduced into a vacuum of the mass spectrometer, and a detector in the mass spectrometer which determines a mass to charge ratio analysis of the fragment ions.

A water trap system based on a thermoelectric cooling device is employed to remove a major fraction of the water from air samples, prior to analysis of these samples for chemical composition, by a variety of analytical techniques where water vapor interferes with the measurement process. These analytical techniques include infrared spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, ion mobility spectrometry and gas chromatography. The thermoelectric system for trapping water present in air samples can substantially improve detection sensitivity in these analytical techniques when it is necessary to measure trace analytes with concentrations in the ppm (parts per million) or ppb (parts per billion) partial pressure range. The thermoelectric trap design is compact and amenable to use in a portable gas monitoring instrumentation.

A system for the analysis of polyionic molecules by mass spectrometry is provided. The polyionic molecule is attached to a charged tag which neutralizes some of the charge on the polyionic analyte. The formed adduct with a reduced net charge is then analyzed by mass spectrometry, and the determined molecular weight of the adduct can be used to calculate the molecular weight of the analyte. Mass spectrometric analyses of polynucleotides and proteins are particularly amenable to this method.

A mass spectrometer is disclosed wherein a z-lens upstream of an orthogonal acceleration Time of Flight mass analyser is repeatedly switched between a first mode wherein ions are transmitted to the mass analyser for subsequent mass analysis with a relatively high transmission and a second mode wherein ions are transmitted with a relatively low transmission. If it is determined that mass spectral data obtained when the mass analyser is in the first mode is suffering from saturation, then suitably scaled mass spectral data obtained when the mass analyser is in the second mode is used instead. If the saturation is severe then the mass spectral data obtained in the first mode may be replaced in its entirety with mass spectral data obtained in the second mode.

Methods are described for determining the amount of insulin in a sample. More specifically, mass spectrometric methods are described for detecting and quantifying insulin in a biological sample utilizing purification methods coupled with tandem mass spectrometric or high resolution/high accuracy mass spectrometric techniques.

The invention discloses application for analyzing micromolecules with irradiating nanometer carbon spots serving as a matrix assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) matrix. The carbon spots serve as an analysis method of the MALDI matrix and are suitable to mass spectrum analysis for the micromolecules with the m/z between 150-1000. Suitable molecule types comprise amino acid, polypeptide, beta-exhilarant, fatty acid, polymer and the like. When the method is used for detecting the molecule with the m/z between 150-1000, background peaks hardly exist to produce background interference. The method can be effectively used in the fields of organic and biomass spectrometry, spectrometry imaging, protein spectroscopy, metabonomics, biomarker discovery, environment analysis and the like.

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for detecting the noncovalent binding of a potential ligand (such as a drug candidate) to a target, e.g. a biochemical macromolecule such as a protein. The method is based on the Taylor dispersion of an initially sharp boundary between a carrier solution, and an analyte solution that contains the potential ligand(s) and the target. Dispersion profiles of one or more potential ligands are monitored by mass spectrometry at the exit of the laminar flow tube. Potential ligands will usually be relatively small molecules that have large diffusion coefficients. In the absence of any noncovalent interactions in solution, very steep dispersion profiles are expected for these potential ligands. However, a ligand that binds to a large target in solution, will show an apparent diffusion coefficient that is significantly reduced, thus resulting in a more extended dispersion profile. Noncovalent binding can therefore be detected by monitoring dispersion profiles of potential ligands in the presence and in the absence of the target. In contrast to other mass spectrometry-based methods for detecting noncovalent interactions, this method does not rely on the preservation of specific noncovalent interactions in the gas phase. This method has an excellent sensitivity and selectivity, therefore it can be used for testing multiple potential ligands simultaneously. The method is therefore useful for the high throughput screening of compound libraries.