MALDI-TOFMS Pulses Ahead

摘要

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ioniza-tion (MALDI) is a "soft" ionization technique for introducing very large delicate molecules such as proteins into a mass spectrometer without fragmentation, Michael Karas, Doris Bachmann, and Franz Hillenkamp coined the term "matrix-assisted" in 1985, when they reported the use of tryptophan and nicotinic acid as matrix compounds to permit LD of nonvolatile amino acids and peptides. MALDI of larger biomolecules was presented at a 1987 conference by Koichi Tanaka of Shi-madzu (Japan), who used a matrix of ultra-fine metal powder dispersed in glycerol to desorb 70,000-Da proteins, Hillen-kamp's group refined its organic matrix method and published spectra of proteins up to 100,000 Da in 1987 and 1988. Their approach has since been adopted by the mainstream, MALDI's applications have multiplied so rapidly that in only a few year's of commercial availability, it has become a substantial and very "hot" sub-field in MS.