No description available.

No / Hypoxia is a common feature observed in solid tumours. It is a target of interest in oncology as it has been found to be closely associated with tumour progression, metastasis and aggressiveness and confers resistance to a variety of chemotherapeutic agents as well as radiotherapy. AQ4N, also known as banoxatrone or 1,4-bis-[2-(dimethylamino-Noxide) ethyl]amino-5,8-dihydroxyanthracene-9,10-dione is a very promising bioreductive prodrug. This paper, describes an application of MALDI-MSI combined with ion mobility separation and an "on-tissue" bottom up proteomic strategy to obtain proteomic data from AQ4N dosed tumour xenograft tissue sections. These data are then correlated with the drug distribution determined also using MALDI-ion mobility separation-mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-IMS-MSI). PCA-DA and OPLS-DA have been used to compare treated and untreated xenografts and of note is the marked increase in expression of Histone H3.

Mass spectrometry has frequently been employed in the analysis of biologically relevant molecules; however, mass spectrometry alone may not always be sufficient for the differentiation and characterization of isomeric and isobaric ions. In this work, infrared multiple photon dissociation (IRMPD) spectroscopy and ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) were evaluated as complementary techniques for the characterization and separation of isomeric and isobaric ions of biological relevance. In the first project, analysis of experimental IRMPD spectroscopy data shows that this technique is useful in the differentiation of hydroxyproline isomers. Absorption bands allow for the differentiation of three isomeric species: 1640 cm-1 (trans-4-hydroxyproline), 1718 cm-1 (cis-4-hydroxyproline), and 1734 cm-1 (cis-3-hydroxyproline). In the second project, theoretical CCS and IR spectroscopy predictions of isobaric modified amino acids and isomeric drugs have been carried out as predictions of IMS and IRMPD spectroscopy suitability. Preliminary IMS measurements suggest that the CCS predictions are at least qualitatively useful.

No description available.

No description available.

<p>Advancements in 3D printing technology have provided (1) easy access to low-cost, open- source robotics, and (2) a fast fabrication technique for analytical devices among others. Using the robotics of a 3D printer, a mass spectrometry-based reaction screening device was built as a low- cost, modest throughput alternative to expensive, very fast systems. Using the 3D printer for fabrication, ion mobility devices were fabricated. Fundamental studies of the motion of ions in these devices were performed in addition to applications of ion mobility-mass spectrometry using a 3D printed drift tube ion mobility spectrometer.</p><p><br></p><p>With only simple modification, 3D printer kits provide nearly all the necessary parts for a functional reaction screening device. Replacing the hotend assembly with custom parts to hold a syringe, precise volumes of reaction mixtures can be dispensed, and high voltage applied to the needle for direct analysis of solutions by mass spectrometry. Direct analysis of reaction mixtures in a 96-well microtiter plates was completed in approximately 105 minutes (~65 seconds per reaction mixture, including washing of syringe). Following analysis, product distributions derived from the electrospray mass spectra were represented as heatmaps and optimum reaction conditions were determined. Using low-cost, open-source hardware, a modest throughput for reaction screening could be achieved using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry.</p><p><br></p><p>The manipulation of ions at reduced pressures is very well understood, whereas the efficient manipulation of ions at atmospheric pressure is far less understood. Using 3D printing, multiple iterations of atmospheric pressure drift tube ion mobility spectrometers were fabricated with one and two turns in the drift path. Optimum electrode geometries for ion transmission and resolution were determined by both simulation and experiment. Racetrack effects, where ions on the inside of turns have a shorter path than ions on the outside, were determined to be highly detrimental to resolving power. Drift tubes with two turns in opposite directions (a chicane) corrected for racetrack effects and had only marginally poorer resolving power than a straight drift tube. Additionally, ion intensities were nearly identical between optimized straight and turned ion paths, showing that these manipulations can be done with high efficiency. The focusing of ions at reduced pressure using RF ion funnels at reduced pressure can have nearly 100 percent transmission. At atmospheric pressure, RF fields are not nearly as efficient at focusing ions. By using non-uniform DC fields at atmospheric pressure, ions can be focused, but not nearly to the extent as at reduced pressure.</p><p><br></p><div><div><div><p>The coupling of atmospheric pressure drift tube ion mobility with ion trap mass spectrometry is inefficient due to the mismatch in duty cycle between the two instruments. For this reason, increasing the amount of data collected from a single experiment is of high importance. Fourier transform ion mobility increases the duty cycle from less than 1% to 25%. When ions are fragmented in the mass spectrometer, they maintain the frequency characteristic of the precursor. Therefore, ions can be fragmented without isolation in the ion trap (reducing duty cycle further) and related precursors and product ions identified through their drift time. Two-dimensional tandem mass spectrometry is a method to collect all tandem mass spectrometry information in a single scan. When coupled with ion mobility, this data can be used to generate functional group- specific ion mobility spectra where ion intensity is measured along a precursor or neutral loss scan line. This was demonstrated for a lipid sample in which head-group specific ion mobility spectra were obtained using head-group specific precursor and neutral loss scan lines.</p></div></div></div>

Soft-landing ion mobility has applicability in a variety of areas. The ability to produce material and collect a sufficient amount for further analysis and applications is the key goal of this technique. Soft-landing ion mobility has provided a way to deposit material in a controllable fashion, and can be tailored to specific applications. Changing the conditions at which soft-landing ion mobility occurs effects the characteristics of the resulting particles (size, distribution/coverage on the surface). Longer deposition times generated more material on the surface; however, higher pressures increased material loss due to diffusion. Larger particles were landed when using higher pressures, and increased laser energy at ablation. The utilization of this technique for the deposition of silver clusters has provided a solvent free matrix application technique for MALDI-MS. The low kinetic energy of incident ions along with the solvent free nature of soft-landing ion mobility lead to a technique capable of imaging sensitive samples and low mass analysis. The lack of significant interference as seen by traditional organic matrices is avoided with the use of metallic particles, providing a major enhancement in the ability to analyze low mass compounds by MALDI.

Proteomic studies aim to identify, quantify and characterise the full complement of proteins in a cell or organism under a defined set of conditions, and are important to our understanding of cellular mechanisms. However, such studies represent a major analytical challenge. A typical proteome analysis involves enzyme-mediated digestion of complex protein mixtures to yield an even more complex mixture of peptides. Combined reverse-phase liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry is then traditionally utilised to ascertain sequence information from the characteristic peptide sequences. Analytical data derived for the peptides are employed as search terms in database searching of protein sequences derived from gene sequences. The extreme complexity of the peptide mixtures analysed means that additional novel approaches are required to fully interrogate the vast number of tandem mass spectra generated, assigning peptide identity and thereby helping to address demanding biological questions. The research reported here aims to further our understanding of both gas phase peptide/peptide fragment ion structure and peptide fragmentation behaviour using a combination of tandem mass spectrometry and ion mobility measurement.To facilitate the determination of peptide ion collision cross section, a novel standard, QCAL-IM, produced using the QconCAT strategy, has been developed to enable calibration of drift time in Travelling Wave Ion Mobility instruments. The standard facilitates empirical determination of the rotationally averaged collision cross section of any peptide/peptide fragment ion that lies within the calibration range encompassed. QCAL-IM was subsequently utilised to determine the collision cross section of a range of peptide ions produced by Lys-C and Lys-N proteolysis of ‘standard’ proteins. Data produced allowed the effect upon gas phase ion conformation through changing the location of the basic residue lysine within a peptide sequence to be assessed.The fragmentation behaviour of peptide ions produced by a variety of digestion regimes during both collision-induced dissociation (CID) and electron transfer dissociation (ETD) has also been extensively studied. The proteases trypsin and Lys-C are those typically utilised during proteomic studies and peptides produced by each have either the basic residues arginine or lysine at their carboxy-terminus. Secondary enzymatic treatment with the exoprotease carboxypeptidase B cleaves these basic residues from the C-terminus. Tandem mass spectrometric analysis of both tryptic/Lys-C peptides and their CBPB truncated analogue highlights that the dominant fragment ion series observed during both CID and ETD is determined, at least in part, by the location of such basic residues.Finally, studies were undertaken to investigate the factors which may promote/inhibit scrambling of peptide fragment ion sequence, which has recently been shown to take place during CID. The effect of modifying the gas phase basicity of the N-terminal amino acid residue is studied through a combination of derivatisation and synthesis of alternative peptide sequences. Increasing the gas phase basicity is shown to inhibit the observed sequence scrambling while promoting concomitant rearrangement/retention of a carboxyl oxygen at the C-terminus to give enhanced formation of bn+H2O product ion species.

Travelling wave ion mobility spectrometry (TWIMS) in combination with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) and mass spectrometry (MS) has been applied successfully for the untargeted, global metabolic profiling of biofluids such as mouse plasma and saliva. Methods based on UHPLC-MS alone and in combination with ion mobility spectrometry (UHPLC-IM-MS) have been developed and validated for the untargeted metabolite profiling of saliva, obtained non-invasively by passive drool. Three separate metabolic profiling studies have been carried out in conjunction with bioinformatics strategies to identify potential metabolomic biomarker ions that are associated with efficacy of rice bran in colorectal cancer, physiological stress and that have the potential for the diagnosis of asthma. The advantages offered by the utility of ion mobility in UHPLC-MS based metabolic profiling studies, including the increased analytical space, mass spectral clean-up of contaminants such as PEG post-UHPLC-IM-MS analysis, enhancement of the selectivity of targeted metabolites as well as the potential for the identification of metabolites by comparison of ion mobility drift times have been highlighted. Ten potential metabolic biomarker ions of asthma have been identified from the moderate asthmatics from untargeted metabolite profiling of saliva by UHPLC-MS. A predictive model based on partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) has been constructed using these ten discriminant ions, which demonstrates good predictive capability for moderate asthmatics and controls. Potential metabolic biomarker ions of physiological stress have been identified through untargeted metabolite profiling analysis of saliva samples collected before and after exercise by UHPLC-IM-MS. Valerolactam has been identified as a potential biomarker of physiological stress from saliva by comparison of retention time, ion mobility drift time and MS/MS spectra with a standard of δ-valerolactam.

The increased use of mass spectrometry in the clinical setting has led to a demand for high sample throughput. Developments such as ultra high performance liquid chromatography and the ambient ionization techniques enable high sample throughput by reducing chromatographic run times or by removing the requirement for sample preparation and fractionation prior to analysis. This thesis assesses the reproducibility and robustness of these high throughput techniques for the analysis of clinical and pharmaceutical samples by ion mobility-mass spectrometry. The rapid quantitative analysis of the urinary biomarkers of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, desmosine and isodesmosine has been performed by ultra high performance liquid chromatography combined with ion mobility-mass spectrometry. The determination of health status based on the free unbound fraction rather than the total bound and unbound desmosine and isodesmosine, significantly reduces the time taken in sample preparation. The potential for direct analysis of the urinary metabolites from undeveloped TLC plates using a solvent extraction surface sample probe is demonstrated. The use of a solvent gradient for the extraction separates urinary metabolites from salts and other matrix components and allows fractionation of the sample as a result of differential retention on the undeveloped RP-TLC plate. This separation, combined with ion mobility-mass spectrometry provides a rapid ambient ionization method for urinary profiling. The combination of a thermal desorption probe with extractive electrospray ionization has been applied to the direct detection of a known genotoxic impurity from a surrogate active pharmaceutical ingredient. The volatility of the impurity compared to the matrix, allowed selective thermal desorption of the analyte, which was ionized by extractive electrospray and detected by mass spectrometry. The use of a rapid on-probe derivatisation reaction, combined with thermal desorption is demonstrated for the direct determination of urinary creatinine. The aqueous acylation of creatinine significantly increases the volatility of the analyte enabling separation from the urine matrix and analysis by thermal desorption extractive electrospray combined with ion mobility-mass spectrometry.