title: Energy-resolved ion mobility-mass spectrometry--a concept to improve the separation of isomeric carbohydrates.
abstract: Recent works using ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) have highlighted the power of this instrumental configuration to tackle one of the greatest challenges in glycomics and glycoproteomics: the existence of isobaric isomers. For a successful separation of species with identical mass but different structure via IM-MS, it is crucial to have sufficient IM resolution. In commercially available IM-MS instruments, however, this resolution is limited by the design of the instrument and usually cannot be increased at-will without extensive modifications. Here, we present a systematic approach to improve the resolving capability of IM-MS instruments using so-called energy-resolved ion mobility-mass spectrometry. The technique utilizes the fact that individual components in an isobaric mixture fragment at considerably different energies when activated in the gas phase via collision-induced dissociation (CID). As a result, certain components can be suppressed selectively at increased CID activation energy. Using a mixture of four isobaric carbohydrates, we show that each of the individual sugars can be resolved and unambiguously identified even when their drift times differ by as little as 3%. However, the presented results also indicate that a certain difference in the gas-phase stability of the individual components is crucial for a successful separation via energy-resolved IM-MS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Physics, Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Waldemar
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hoffmann
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hofmann
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pagel
mesh_terms: D002241:Carbohydrates / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D019295:Computational Biology; D007536:Isomerism; D019032:Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
chemical_list: D002241:Carbohydrates