By playing with the hardware and software of a mass spectrometer, ions can be captured and analysed for much longer. This leads to very high sensitivity and resolution, write Utrecht researchers in Nature Methods.

In mass spectrometry (MS), molecules in the form of ions are ‘weighed’ with an electric field. Based on how fast or slow they pass through the field, you can deduce their mass. Nowadays, this can also be done with large biomolecules such as glycosylated antibodies or even whole viruses. You could use an orbitrap, which traps an ion in a box where it rotates around an electrode.

However, with the current length of time - 1 to 2 seconds - the sensitivity or resolution is quite low. Albert Heck’s biomolecular mass spectrometry group at Utrecht University therefore teamed up with Thermo Fischer Scientific and Spectroswiss to find an improvement. Using a new approach, they achieved a more than tenfold increase in effective measuring time (25 s), a fivefold improvement in signal-to-noise ratio and a 25-fold improvement in mass resolution.