Tandem mass spectrometry molecular identification with

FAB and LSIMS are matrix-mediated desorption techniques that use energetic particle bombardment to simultaneously ionize samples like carotenoids and transfer them to the gas phase for mass spectrometric analysis. Molecular ions and/or protonated molecules are usually abundant and fragmentation is minimal. Tandem mass spectrometry with collision-induced dissociation (CID) may be used to produce abundant structurally significant fragment ions from molecular ion precursors (formed using FAB or any suitable ionization technique) for additional characterization and identification of chlorophylls and their derivatives. Continuous-flow FAB/LSIMS may be interfaced to an HPLC system for high-throughput flow-injection analysis or on-line LC/MS. 

The protein identification or sequence determination of a protein can be achieved using two different approaches top-down [22, 23] and bottom-up [24], A top-down experiment involves high-resolution measurement of an intact molecular weight and direct fragmentation of protein ions by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) [25], This approach surveys an entire protein sequence with 100% coverage. Post-translational modifications such as glyco-... 

One of the most powerful techniques used in Upid analysis today is HPLC coupled with mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS). Several mass spectrometric ionization techniques, such as fast atom bombardment (FAB) [23], electrospray ionization (ESI) [29,30], ionspray ionization (ISI) [31], and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) [22,30,32] have been used. By using HPLC/MS, one can get information on the molecular structure of the intact lipids, which helps differentiate molecular species within different lipid classes. By using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), identification of molecular species of different sphingolipids can be achieved in an easier and more sensitive way. There are many other advantages of using MS, such as small sample size, minimal sample preparation, and lack of need for derivatization, speeds, and sensitivity. In the literature, sphingolipids of both animal and plant origin were analyzed by MS. 

One of the most serious drawbacks that has been observed in the ionisation process with TSP, APCI, ESI interfaces, and also with FAB, is the soft ionisation of the analytes which mostly leads to molecular ions or molecular adduct ions. Though molecular mass information is provided, there is little or no structural information at all observable with PBI or electron impact (El) MS. This soft ionisation is clearly disadvantageous for any identification of environmental contaminants, since it generates either considerably less or no fragments at all, and hence is unable to confirm the presence of such compounds of environmental concern. With the commercial availability of tandem devices, tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) helped to overcome these identification obstacles via coUision-induced dissociation (CID) in MS/MS mode or via ion trap in MS mode. Today, even bench-top machines provide the possibility of MS . However, when TSP began to become the method of choice in environmental analysis and became commercially available, MS/MS technology was still quite expensive. Users of TSP ionisation with spectrometers not amenable for MS/MS had the possibility to record... 

The exact m/z value of the molecular or quasimolecular ion reveals the ion s elemental composition and, thus, allows for the compositional analysis of the sample under study. If the molecular ions are unstable and decompose completely, the resulting fragmentation patterns can be used as a fingerprint for the identification of the sample. Fragment ions also provide important information about the primary structure (i.e., coimectivity or sequence) of the sample molecules.With soft ionization methods that produce little or no fragments, fragmentation can be induced by employing tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). ... 

Identification is primarily based on molecular-mass determination, while for an actual structure elucidation LC-MS must be used in combination with tandem mass spectrometry (MS-MS). ESI and APCI are soft-ionization techniques, generating only intact molecule-derived ions, but no fragment ions for most molecules. Therefore, it is frequently applied in combination with MS-MS to achieve more structural information. With respect to qualitative analysis, the use of electrospray LC-MS-MS for peptide sequencing as part of proteomics research is currently an important area. 

Top-down proteomics [1] is the identification and characterization of a mature, intact protein (or proteins) using primarily mass spectrometry (MS)-based techniques and the sequence information contained in genomic/proteomic databases. Unhke bottom-up proteomics [2-4], where a protein (or proteins) is digested into peptides prior to MS or tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) analysis [3,4], the top-down approach involves measuring the molecular weight (MW) of the intact, mature protein with its associated posttranslational modifications (PTMs) if any. The intact protein ion is then fragmented in the gas phase in order to determine its amino acid sequence as well as the location and identification of PTMs. From its earliest development, top-down proteomics has been primarily the domain of electrospray ionization (ESI) [5] (which generates mul-... 

Molecular identification was performed with tandem mass spectrometry using a QIT-TOF mass spectrometer (AXIMA-QIT Shimadzu, Kyoto, Japan) to ensure the molecular assignment which was performed using only mass. The MS analysis was performed directly on the sections of tissue sections in the mid-mass range mode. 

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