Cyclodextrin and malto-dextrose collision cross sections determined in a drift tube ion mobility mass spectrometer using nitrogen bath gas.

In this study, we have evaluated a low field limit drift tube ion mobility device for ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) measurements that uses nitrogen as a bath gas with electrospray ionization on a modified Q-TOF instrument. We have determined reduced mobility (K0) and collision cross section (CCS) values for a group of analyte ions that have been characterized previously in other drift tube IM-MS instruments. Our determinations of CCS for this set of ions as well as for standards are in agreement with published values. Because of their importance in biophysics and pharmaceuticals, we expanded our analysis to investigate the properties of cyclodextrins in this system. We present CCS data for both positively and negatively charged cyclodextrins and, for purposes of comparison, maltodextrose ions. Our results are the first reports of these materials as negative ions.

Evaluation of drift gas selection in complex sample analyses using a high performance drift tube ion mobility-QTOF mass spectrometer.

A recently developed uniform-field high resolution ion mobility (IM) quadrupole time of flight (Q-TOF) mass spectrometer is used for evaluating the utility of alternate drift gases for complex sample analyses. This study provides collision cross section comparison for 275 total pesticides including structural isomers in nitrogen, helium, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and sulfur hexafluoride drift gases. Furthermore, a set of small molecules and Agilent tune mix compounds were used to study the trends in experimentally derived collision cross section values in argon and the alternate drift gases. Two isomeric trisaccharides, melezitose and raffinose, were used to evaluate the effect of the drift gasses for mobility separation. The hybrid ion mobility Q-TOF mass analyzer used in this study consists of a low pressure uniform field drift tube apparatus coupled to a high resolution Q-TOF mass spectrometer. Conventionally, low pressure ion mobility instruments are operated using helium drift gas to obtain optimal structural information and collision cross-section (CCS) values that compare to theoretical CCS values. The instrument employed in this study uses nitrogen as the standard drift gas but also allows the utility of alternate drift gases for improved structural analysis and selectivity under certain conditions. The use of alternate drift gases with a wide range of polarizabilities allows the evaluation of mobility separation power in terms of induced dipole interactions between the drift gas and the analyte ions.

Conformational ordering of biomolecules in the gas phase: nitrogen collision cross sections measured on a prototype high resolution drift tube ion mobility-mass spectrometer.

Ion mobility-mass spectrometry measurements which describe the gas-phase scaling of molecular size and mass are of both fundamental and pragmatic utility. Fundamentally, such measurements expand our understanding of intrinsic intramolecular folding forces in the absence of solvent. Practically, reproducible transport properties, such as gas-phase collision cross-section (CCS), are analytically useful metrics for identification and characterization purposes. Here, we report 594 CCS values obtained in nitrogen drift gas on an electrostatic drift tube ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) instrument. The instrument platform is a newly developed prototype incorporating a uniform-field drift tube bracketed by electrodynamic ion funnels and coupled to a high resolution quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The CCS values reported here are of high experimental precision (±0.5% or better) and represent four chemically distinct classes of molecules (quaternary ammonium salts, lipids, peptides, and carbohydrates), which enables structural comparisons to be made between molecules of different chemical compositions for the rapid "omni-omic" characterization of complex biological samples. Comparisons made between helium and nitrogen-derived CCS measurements demonstrate that nitrogen CCS values are systematically larger than helium values; however, general separation trends between chemical classes are retained regardless of the drift gas. These results underscore that, for the highest CCS accuracy, care must be exercised when utilizing helium-derived CCS values to calibrate measurements obtained in nitrogen, as is the common practice in the field.