Illustrating the Concepts of Isotopes and Mass Spectrometry in Introductory Courses: A MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry Laboratory Experiment

摘要

Mass spectrometry is a widely-used and versatile technique that is increasingly being introduced to undergraduates through laboratory experiments. Most of these experiments involve the mass analysis of volatile samples using GC-MS. In the last 20 years a number of techniques have been introduced that expand the usefulness of mass spectrometry to nonvolatile species. Soft ionization techniques allow the mass analysis of nonvolatile species such as biomolecules, polymers, and clusters. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) and elec-trospray ionization (ESI) have been particularly successful soft ionization techniques. The importance of the mass analysis of large proteins using these techniques was highlighted with the awarding of a share of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Koichi Tanaka and John Fenn. However, few experiments for undergraduate laboratory students have been published utilizing these techniques and even fewer are designed for first-year students. We present a MALDI undergraduate lab experiment for students in an introductory course.