Development and Characterization of a Novel Plug and Play Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) Source That Automates Connections between the Capillary Trap, Column, and Emitter

摘要

We report the development and characterization of a novel, vendor-neutral ultra-high pressure-compatible (∼10,000 p.s.i.) LC-MS source. This device is the first to make automated connections with user-packed capillary traps, columns, and capillary emitters. The source uses plastic rectangular inserts (referred to here as cartridges) where individual components (i.e. trap, column, or emitter) can be exchanged independent of one another in a plug and play manner. Automated robotic connections are made between the three cartridges using linear translation powered by stepper motors to axially compress each cartridge by applying a well controlled constant compression force to each commercial LC fitting. The user has the versatility to tailor the separation (e.g. the length of the column, type of stationary phase, and mode of separation) to the experimental design of interest in a cost-effective manner. The source is described in detail, and several experiments are performed to evaluate the robustness of both the system and the exchange of the individual trap and emitter cartridges. The standard deviation in the retention time of four targeted peptides from a standard digest interlaced with a soluble Caenorhabditis elegans lysate ranged between 3.1 and 5.3 s over 3 days of analyses. Exchange of the emitter cartridge was found to have an insignificant effect on the abundance of various peptides. In addition, the trap cartridge can be replaced with minimal effects on retention time (<20 s). We report the development and characterization of a novel, vendor-neutral ultra-high pressure-compatible (∼10,000 p.s.i.) LC-MS source. This device is the first to make automated connections with user-packed capillary traps, columns, and capillary emitters. The source uses plastic rectangular inserts (referred to here as cartridges) where individual components (i.e. trap, column, or emitter) can be exchanged independent of one another in a plug and play manner. Automated robotic connections are made between the three cartridges using linear translation powered by stepper motors to axially compress each cartridge by applying a well controlled constant compression force to each commercial LC fitting. The user has the versatility to tailor the separation (e.g. the length of the column, type of stationary phase, and mode of separation) to the experimental design of interest in a cost-effective manner. The source is described in detail, and several experiments are performed to evaluate the robustness of both the system and the exchange of the individual trap and emitter cartridges. The standard deviation in the retention time of four targeted peptides from a standard digest interlaced with a soluble Caenorhabditis elegans lysate ranged between 3.1 and 5.3 s over 3 days of analyses. Exchange of the emitter cartridge was found to have an insignificant effect on the abundance of various peptides. In addition, the trap cartridge can be replaced with minimal effects on retention time (<20 s). The tremendous progress in the field of proteomics over the last decade can largely be attributed to significant advancements in mass spectrometry instrumentation (1Syka J.E. Marto J.A. Bai D.L. Horning S. Senko M.W. Schwartz J.C. Ueberheide B. Garcia B. Busby S. Muratore T. Shabanowitz J. Hunt D.F. Novel linear quadrupole ion trap/FT mass spectrometer: Performance characterization and use in the comparative analysis of histone H3 post-translational modifications.J. Proteome Res. 2004; 3: 621-626Crossref PubMed Scopus (333) Google Scholar, 2Andrews G.L. Simons B.L. Young J.B. Hawkridge A.M. Muddiman D.C. Performance characteristics of a new hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometer (TripleTOF 5600).Anal. Chem. 2011; 83: 5442-5446Crossref PubMed Scopus (223) Google Scholar, 3Hu Q. Noll R.J. Li H. Makarov A. Hardman M. Graham Cooks R. The Orbitrap: a new mass spectrometer.J. Mass Spectrom. 2005; 40: 430-443Crossref PubMed Scopus (982) Google Scholar, 4Olse