French researchers develop new mass-spectrometry technology to study particles on the nanoscale

摘要

A team of researchers from from CEA-Leti, the CEA Biosciences and Biotechnology Institute of Grenoble (BIG) and the Institute for Integrative Biology of Gif-sur-Yvette has demonstrated a new mass-spectrometry technology based on nanomechanical resonators that measures the mass of particles previously beyond the reach of current commercial systems. The solution was then used to measure the mass of a whole bacteriophage virus capsid, which has not been achieved before.Current mass measurement technologies can weigh from several tons down to the mass of hydrogen atom, roughly one atomic mass unit, or Dalton (Da). Between these extremes, a gap in mass of several orders of magnitude has been unfilled; so far, no commercial technology could measure the mass of nanoscale objects in the megadalton (MDa) to gigadalton (GDa) range. Yet, this range is of great interest, since it includes most viruses, diverse biomarkers for conditions such as cancers and degenerative diseases, and synthetic nanoparticles for nanomedicine.