Eliminating sweet spot in MALDI-MS with hydrophobic ordered structure as target for quantifying biomolecules

In matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS), the analyte is usually distributed unevenly throughout the sample spot. The area with aggregated analyte molecules contributing abundant signal, is termed as “sweet spot”, which results in poor detection reproducibility and...

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Veröffentlicht in:Talanta (Oxford) 2020-10, Vol.218, p.121172-121172, Article 121172
Hauptverfasser: Li, Ning, Dou, Shuzhen, Feng, Lei, Zhu, Qunyan, Lu, Nan
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:In matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS), the analyte is usually distributed unevenly throughout the sample spot. The area with aggregated analyte molecules contributing abundant signal, is termed as “sweet spot”, which results in poor detection reproducibility and makes it impossible to quantify analytes without internal standards. We proposed a strategy to eliminate sweet spot in MALDI-MS by using a hydrophobic ordered structure as target. The target is fabricated by creating a hydrophobic silicon nanopillar array and subsequently decorating it uniformly with poly(methyl methacrylate) nanodots for capturing analytes. The sweet spot is eliminated by distributing analyte molecules uniformly on this target, and then result in a uniform MS image, which demonstrates an ideal reproducibility. Finally, with the target assisted MALDI-MS as biosensor was suitable to analyze practical sample such as bacitracin A in milk. Horse heart myoglobin and, angiotensin III molecules can be quantified without internal standard using α-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamic acid as matrix. This biosensor presented good linearity, high salts tolerance and high signal-to-noise ratio (up to 271.8), even the 1 mol/L salt concentration. This strategy could provide an alternative for improving the performance of MALDI-MS. A novel strategy is proposed for eliminating sweet spot in MALDI-MS based on a hydrophobic ordered structure array, which achieves the quantification for analyzing different biomolecules. [Display omitted] •A MALDI-MS target is prepared by creating a hydrophobic silicon nanopillar array and decorating it with PMMA nanodots.•The sweet spot is eliminated successfully with this target, which highly improved the reproducibility in MALDI-MS analysis.•Various analytes can be quantified without internal standard with this target assisted MALDI-MS as biosensor.•The high salts tolerance of this target can promote the applications of this biosensor in analyzing practical samples.
ISSN:0039-9140
1873-3573
DOI:10.1016/j.talanta.2020.121172