Youri O. Tsybin

Capillary Electrophoresis and Electron Capture Dissociation Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry for Peptide Mixture and Protein Digest Analysis

Recent advances in peptide fragmentation techniques and mass spectrometry have opened up the possibility of combining peptide separation techniques, such as capillary electrophoresis (CE) and capillary liquid chromatography, with Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) and electron capture dissociation (ECD) in order to characterize peptide mixtures and protein digests. The results presented in this study show that CE/ECD-FT-ICR MS can be employed for peptide characterization in mixtures of standard peptides and in peptides resulting from the enzymatic digestion of proteins. Furthermore, the technique has potential for the identification and localization of post-translational modifications in peptides and proteins.

A theoretical investigation of the kinetic energy of ions trapped in a radio-frequency hexapole ion trap

The kinetic energy dependence of ions trapped in a radio-frequency (RF) hexapole ion trap has been calculated as a function of space charge, mean free path, mass, RF potential and charge. The average kinetic energy of the ions was found to increase with increasing space charge, mean free path and the ion charge state. For a trapped ion in a given coulombic field, the mass of the ion and the amplitude of the applied RF potential did not affect the average kinetic energy. The consequences for multipole-storage-assisted dissociation (MSAD), in which ions are accumulated for prolonged periods of time in the multipole ion trap of an electrospray ion source, are discussed. As a result of radial stratification inside the ion trap, MSAD can lead to the preferential excitation of ions with larger m/z values. Such discrimination would have negative consequences for the detection of labile non-covalent adducts, which are normally detected at higher m/z values than their constituent species.