Mass spectrometry (MS) is a sensitive analytical technique that ionizes chemical species and detects the ions based on their mass and charge (m/z) ratio. Creative Biolabs provides mass spectrometry service to support your drug discovery process. The MS platform can be used in many different fields and is applied to pure samples as well as complex mixtures.
MS was first used in biological science to trace heavy isotopes. Later, MS was used to sequence oligonucleotides and peptides and analyze nucleotide structure. MS is now the foundational technology of high throughput omic analyses and has a broad range of applications in the areas of proteomics, metabolomics, and some aspects of genomics such as SNP determination. For pharmaceutical applications, MS can be used to characterize compounds, determine purities, and in conjunction with bioassays to perform the fragment-based screening.
The equipment of MS is a mass spectrometer, which converts individual molecules to ions so that the molecules can be manipulated by external electric and magnetic fields and the characteristics can be measured. A typical MS procedure is: the compound is ionized, usually by the loss of electrons of cations. Then, ions are sorted and separated according to their mass and charge, typically by accelerating them and subjecting them to an electric or magnetic field. The separated ions are detected by detecting charged particles, and the results displayed as spectra of the relative abundance of detected ions.
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Creative Biolabs uses numerous innovative efforts to apply various mass spectrometric techniques in early drug discovery. The analysis of complex biological mixtures in the drug discovery process is greatly aided by additional stages of separation prior to analysis by MS. Three methods are commonly used in the pharmaceutical sector: Gas Chromatography (GC)-MS, Reversed-Phase High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)-MS, and Capillary Electrophoresis (CE)-MS. In these years, a new gas phase separation technology, Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS)-MS, provides a powerful tool for the separation of complex biological-derived peptide mixtures. The various capabilities have significantly enhanced throughput capability in the PK/PD studies, biophysical characterization, and metabolism studies.
Gas Chromatography-MS (GC-MS)
The mixtures of molecules are separated in a capillary tube coated with a hydrophobic material. A carrier gas is used as the mobile phase to transport the individual molecules through the capillary and into the mass spectrometer.
Reversed-Phase High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-MS (HPLC-MS)
The complex biological mixture is firstly dissolved in an aqueous solution in a column packed with a stationary support. An organic solvent (typically acetonitrile) liquid mobile phase is then pumped through the column. This causes peptides to differentially migrate through the column as a function of their hydrophobicity. MS continually detects the peptides after eluting from the HPLC column.
Capillary Electrophoresis-MS (CE-MS)
Analyte mixtures in a capillary tube containing conductive liquid medium are subjected to a high voltage. Individual analyte is separated based on their charge (or partial charge) to mass ratio and directly sprayed into the ESI source.
Ion Mobility Spectrometry-MS (IMS-MS)
Ions are subject to an applied electrical potential gradient in the presence of a neutral carrier gas (like argon). Analytes are separated based on their ionic radius to charge as a function of ‘drift time'. Since separations in the IMS drift tube and MS analysis occurs at a much faster rate, it is possible to analysis in real time to obtain rich information content.
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