Other Recently Developed Desorption Ionization Techniques

3 Other Recently Developed Desorption Ionization Techniques 

Several modifications of MALDI have been developed to couple additional sampling and reaction capabilities to this technique. Surface-enhanced laser desorption ionization (SELDI) is one type of modified MALDI and describes an ionization process that involves reacting a sample with an enhanced surface. With SELDI, the sample interacts with a surface modified with some chemical functionality prior to laser desorption ionization and mass analysis. For example, an analyte could bind with receptors or affinity media on the surface, and be selectively captured and sampled by laser desorption. A SELDI surface can be modified for chemical (hydrophobic, ionic, immunoaffinity) or biochemical (antibody, DNA, enzyme, receptor) interactions with the sample. This technique can act as another dimension of separation or sample cleanup for analytes in complex matrices. As discussed before, one disadvantage of MALDI is that the matrix (usually a substituted cinnamic acid) that is mixed with the sample can directly interfere with the analysis of small molecules. There have been several areas of research to overcome this issue.Direct ionization on silicon (DIOS) is an example of a modification of MADLI that eliminates the matrix. In this case, analytes are captured on a silicon surface prior to laser desorption and ionization. Other examples of matrix-free laser desorption techniques include the use of siloxane or carbon-based polymers. 

Another emerging technique in this area is laser diode thermal desorption (LDTD), which is used along with a commercially available APCI source to rapidly introduce a large number of samples into the MS without LC separation. With LDTD, samples are adsorbed onto the surface of a well in a 96-well plate. An IR laser beam is then used to vaporize the material in each well into 

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A recently developed technique that has found extensive use in the characterization of dendrimers, specifically in determining the purity and monodispersity of these novel materials, has been matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry [16,17]. For dendrimers grown by the divergent strategy, incomplete functionalization of the periphery can lead to subsequent failure sequences and loss of strict dendritic growth. Observation and quantification of these defects is extremely difficult by other techniques, however MALDI mass spectrometry has been successfully employed by a variety of authors to... 

We have summarized in the previous pages the recent developments (prior to 1980 ) of new soft ionization techniques and of various peripherals. These aspects often responded to the need to obtain molecular ions, in order to determine the molecular masses of these often thermo-labile biological molecules, leading to the development of soft ionization methods and to obtain sufficient vaporization (or desorption) of the sample studied. Among other methods, field desorption (and DCI), the use of lasers and radioactive decomposition of Cf have been introduced. 

Analyses of tropane alkaloids are mainly carried out by GC and HPLC and to a lesser extent by CE. This review describes recent applications developed for the analysis of this class of compounds in plant materials and biological matrices. Of course, mass spectrometry is generally used as the detection technique because of its high sensitivity and selectivity, but other techniques such as UV, fluorescence, flame ionization detection, nuclear magnetic resonance, among others have also been investigated. Finally, desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry is reported as a new interesting detection technique for the rapid analysis of samples without any sample preparation. 

Mass Spectrometry (MS). MS is one of the key techniques used in structure determination of carbohydrates and analyses via electron impact (E.I.) and chemical ionization (C.I.) methods are performed routinely on low molecular weight permethylated or peracetylated carbohydrates. Recently, MS procedures have found wider application in the structure elucidation of less volatile higher molecular weight oligosaccharides as a result of instrumental developments (in particular, desorption methods of ionization, based on fast atom bombardment (FAB) (93), field desorption (FD), laser desorption (LD), plasma desorption (PD), and secondary ion (SI) mass spectrometry) and improvements in derivatization techniques. For example, a series of malto-oligosaccharides, starch and other glycans have been examined with LD FD-MS (94,95) whilst FAB techniques have been employed for studies of cello- and malto-oligosaccharides (96) and branched cyclo-dextrins (97). 

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