Polymers for Traveling Wave Ion Mobility Spectrometry Calibration

• Published in: Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Vol. 28; no. 11; pp. 2483 - 2491
• Main Authors: Duez, Quentin, Chirot, Fabien, Liénard, Romain, Josse, Thomas, Choi, ChangMin, Coulembier, Olivier, Dugourd, Philippe, Cornil, Jérôme, Gerbaux, Pascal, De Winter, Julien
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.11.2017; Springer Nature B.V; American Chemical Society
• Subjects: Addition polymerization; Analytical Chemistry; Bioinformatics; Biotechnology; CALIBRATION; CHARGE STATES; Chemical Physics; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; COVERINGS; CROSS SECTIONS; DRIFT TUBES; INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; ION MOBILITY; Ionic mobility; IONIZATION; Ions; Mass spectrometry; Organic Chemistry; Physics; Polyethylene glycol; POLYETHYLENE GLYCOLS; Polyethylenes; Polymers; PROTEINS; Proteomics; Research Article; Scientific imaging; Solid phases; Spectrometry; SPECTROSCOPY; TRAVELLING WAVES; Windows (intervals); Calibration; Ion mobility; TWIMS; Polymers; Traveling wave ion mobility
• ISSN: 1044-0305; 1879-1123; 1879-1123
• DOI: 10.1007/s13361-017-1762-4

One of the main issues when using traveling wave ion mobility spectrometry (TWIMS) for the determination of collisional cross-section (CCS) concerns the need for a robust calibration procedure built from referent ions of known CCS. Here, we implement synthetic polymer ions as CCS calibrants in positive ion mode. Based on their intrinsic polydispersities, polymers offer in a single sample the opportunity to generate, upon electrospray ionization, numerous ions covering a broad mass range and a large CCS window for different charge states at a time. In addition, the key advantage of polymer ions as CCS calibrants lies in the robustness of their gas-phase structure with respect to the instrumental conditions, making them less prone to collisional-induced unfolding (CIU) than protein ions. In this paper, we present a CCS calibration procedure using sodium cationized polylactide and polyethylene glycol, PLA and PEG, as calibrants with reference CCS determined on a home-made drift tube. Our calibration procedure is further validated by testing the polymer calibration to determine CCS of numerous different ions for which CCS are reported in the literature. Graphical Abstract ᅟ