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Characterization of synthetic nucleic acids by electrospray ionization quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry
Author(s) -
Oberacher Herbert,
Niederstätter Harald,
Parson Walther
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of mass spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9888
pISSN - 1076-5174
DOI - 10.1002/jms.870
Subject(s) - chemistry , mass spectrometry , monoisotopic mass , electrospray ionization , chromatography , analytical chemistry (journal) , time of flight mass spectrometry , electrospray , detection limit , resolution (logic) , mass , tandem mass spectrometry , mass spectrum , ionization , ion , organic chemistry , artificial intelligence , computer science
The potential of electrospray ionization quadrupole‐quadrupole‐time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (ESI‐QqTOF‐MS) for the characterization of synthetic nucleic acids was evaluated. Oligonucleotides ranging in size from 12 up to 51 nucleotides were analyzed via direct infusion MS as well as via liquid chromatography (LC) online hyphenated to MS. These experiments proved the outstanding mass spectrometric performance of the TOF mass analyzer in regard of accuracy, reproducibility, resolution, and sensitivity. During a 1‐min run, the monoisotopic mass of (dT) 24 was measured with a maximum relative mass deviation of 7.64 ppm proving the high mass accuracy of the TOF analyzer. Over a period of 1 h, mean deviations were determined in the range between −3.58 ppm and 3.06 ppm demonstrating the high stability of the applied external calibration. The molecular mass of a 51‐mer was measured with a deviation smaller than 3.23 ppm from the theoretical value. The resolution exceeded a value of m/Δm = 20 000 (m is the measured mass and Δm the full peak width at half‐maximum), which enabled the separation of the isotopic peaks of all investigated oligonucleotides. Because of the outstanding transmission and detection efficiency of the TOF mass analyzer, detection limits in the amol/µl to low fmol/µl range were reached. The usability of LC‐ESI‐QqTOF‐MS for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of synthetic oligonucleotide mixtures was demonstrated. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.