Technology

Mass spectrometry plays a vital role in every step of protein and pharmaceutical research, from discovery proteomics to clinical biomarkers.

In tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), the analyte of interest is fragmented and the mass-to-charge (m/z) ratios of the fragments are measured. To improve the signal-to-noise ratio this measurement is repeated multiple times, and the resulting data are read out as a 1D graph: m/z on the x-axis and average abundance across the repeat scans on the y-axis. However, the typical approach of averaging the scans results in a loss of useful information.  As a result, a number of key challenges in protein MS remain difficult to overcome, including the analysis of MS/MS spectra of complex mixtures, large intact proteins and post-translational modification patterns.

Dispectral’s technology enables the extraction of richer information and more powerful scientific discovery. We identify correlations between the small fluctuations across repeated scans to build a 2D map that reveals whether fragments are born in the same fragmentation process.

Benefits of Dispectral 2D Technology

Until now, analysis has generated only the average abundance of ions across repeated scans. Our technology turns this information into a full 2D* map of correlation peaks between protein fragments. This information increases the discovery power of MS. For example, it can enable measurement of entire protein ions on low-resolution machines, in silico separation of complex biological mixtures, and the key to breaking some of the most infamous challenges of the histone code. More importantly, with only the modest m/z resolution offered by the linear ion trap mass analyzer, this 2D information offers biomolecular specificity which is orders of magnitude greater than the most accurate MS instruments. Most importantly, this specificity surpasses the greatest possible specificity offered by existing analysis methods, even in the limit of infinite mass resolution. In other words, this technology offers “a step-change improvement in accuracy” for mass spectrometry. 

Learn More

Click here to learn more about application of Dispectral's 2D technology to Data Independent Acquisition (DIA).

To learn more about applying Dispectral technology to your work, email contact@dispectral.com

*This technology is distinct from other MS methods referred to as “two-dimensional”, such as 2D Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (2D FT-ICR) and stored waveform ion radius modulation (SWIM).