High performance ftms analysis of fullerene calibrants for peptide analysis

by Wilkins, C. L.; Miladinovic, S. M.; Egan, T.; Lewis, E. K.; Schultz, J. A.

This presentation will focus on the use of high performance Fourier transform anal. of fullerenes as calibrants and to validate the performance of com. Ion Mobility-Mass Spectrometry systems. The choice of these materials was influenced by their stability and the mass range available. In the present study, some com. fullerene samples were analyzed with high resoln. MALDI Fourier transform mass spectrometry (100,000 resolving power, 1.5 ppm mass accuracy) using a 9.4 T Bruker Ultraflex FTMS. Subsequently, the samples were subjected to ion mobility anal. using an IonWerks (Houston, TX) periodic focusing MALDI-IM-TOFMS instrument that can be used in both pos. and neg. ion mode. The instrument has a mobility resoln. of 30 (FWHM of drift time) for MALDI and a mass resoln. of 3000 at m/z 1000 using an orthogonal time-of-flight mass spectrometer (o-TOFMS). External calibration of the ion mobility instrument was accomplished using the high resoln. Fourier transform spectral data from carbon cluster measurements. Because the fullerene sample has a trend line that does not overlap with those of peptides and proteins these stable fullerene compds. are excellent candidates for use as mass calibrants over the mass range from m/z several hundred to almost 5000.