News from LabRulezLCMS Library - Week 43, 2024

Our Library never stops expanding. What are the most recent contributions to LabRulezLCMS Library in the week of 21st October 2024? Check out new documents from the field of liquid phase, especially HPLC and LC/MS techniques!

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This week we bring you applications by Thermo Fisher Scientific, Shimadzu, Waters Corporation, and Metrohm and a technical note by Agilent Technologies!

1. Metrohm: Water content in crude oil determined with Karl Fischer titration

• Application

Fully automated determination using the oven method according to ASTM D4928

Crude oil contains water. Before transport, water is removed to reduce costs. Furthermore, the presence of water in crude can cause corrosion. Therefore, it is essential to determine the water content in crude oil. Previously, ASTM D4928 described a direct coulometric Karl Fischer titration to determine water in crude oil. This quickly contaminated the titration cell, requiring regular cleaning and frequent reagent exchange. ASTM D4928 was then revised to include coulometric Karl Fischer titration in combination with the oven method. In this method, the sample is heated in an oven. The water evaporates and is carried into the titration cell by an inert carrier gas. The water content is determined in the titration cell. The oven method avoids titration cell contamination and significantly reduces reagent consumption. It can be fully automated, minimizing handling errors and workloads, with outstanding reproducibility.

CONCLUSION

The oven method is the perfect option to determine water content in crude oils precisely and reliably. Using the 874 Oven Sample Processor allows fully automated determination, freeing up valuable time and thus increasing laboratory productivity. Furthermore, by fully automating the analysis, the reproducibility can be increased and sample analysis failures due to improper handling can be reduced.

2. Thermo Fisher Scientific: Immunopeptidomics: Harnessing cutting-edge technology for unprecedented depth and accessibility in analysis to leverage the immune response for precision therapy

• Application

Introduction

Immunopeptidomics is the study of the peptides presented by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules on the surface of cells. These MHC peptides have major implications for many areas of research, including immunotherapy and personalized medicine. For example, many studies in this field aim to identify low-level tumor specific antigens (TSAs) with the goal of developing personalized immunotherapies to target cancerous cells with a high degree of specificity. Mass spectrometry (MS) allows for direct immunopeptidomics analysis, enabling simultaneous identification and quantification of thousands of MHC peptides in a single run. The recently developed Thermo Scientific™ Orbitrap™ Astral™ mass spectrometer has enabled new levels of sensitivity and selectivity to provide deeper insights into the immunopeptidome. In this study, we utilized the Orbitrap Astral MS to characterize the immunopeptidome extracted from IM-9 human Multiple Myeloma B-lymphocyte cells to support the
detection and annotation of potential neoantigens.

Summary

• The integration of the Vanquish Neo UHPLC system with an Orbitrap Astral mass spectrometer, featuring the FAIMS Pro Duo interface, enhances sensitivity and dynamic detection range in immunopeptide analysis. This configuration enables greater depth of coverage and increased analysis throughput.
• Increased sensitivity allows for compatibility with low levels of material equivalent to samples extracted from tissue biopsy samples.

3. Shimadzu: Quantitative Analysis of Nine Haloacetic Acids in Tap Water Using LCMS™ - 8050RX

• Application

User Benefits

• Enable users to analyze nine haloacetic acids only 15 minutes per cycle using a simple dechlorination pretreatment.
• Enable users to detect nine haloacetic acids at 2 μg/L in water.
• Enable users to analyze nine haloacetic acids with good repeatability and recovery rates that are compliant with validation guidelines.

Introduction

Haloacetic acids in tap water are by-products from disinfection processes during water treatments. In Japan, the Ministerial Ordinance Concerning Water Quality Standards¹⁾ specifies drinking water quality standards for three haloacetic acids: monochloroacetic acid (MCAA), dichloroacetic acid (DCAA), and trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) (with limit values of 0.02 mg/L for MCAA, 0.03 mg/L for DCAA, and 0.03 mg/L for TCAA, respectively). The ordinance also specifies items for further study for the following six additional acids: bromochloroacetic acid (BCAA), bromodichloroacetic acid (BDCAA), dibromochloroacetic acid (DBCAA), monobromoacetic acid (MBAA), dibromoacetic acid (DBAA), and tribromoacetic acid (TBAA).

The EU issued a directive, which became effective in 2020, that regulates five haloacetic acids, that is, the three acids governed by Japanese water quality standards as well as MBAA and DBAA.²⁾

Haloacetic acids are analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS). In particular, the LC/MS enables more efficient measurements since dechlorination is the only for required pretreatment.

This Application News describes an example of analyzing the nine haloacetic acids using the LCMS-8050RX, triple quadrupole mass spectrometer system (Fig. 1).

Conclusion

Nine haloacetic acids specified for water quality testing criteria and monitoring were analyzed simultaneously in 15 minutes using the CMS-8050RX system.

The results indicated that the system offered ample sensitivity for analyzing all haloacetic acids at concentrations of 2 μg/L, and it provided good calibration curve linearity within the 2 to 30 μg/L concentration range. In addition, spike-and-recovery tests of tap water samples (n = 5) provided good results with repeatability (concentration %RSD) of 10 % or less and recovery rates within the 80 to 120 % range. This confirms that analysis
with good accuracy and repeatability can be performed with the LCMS-8050RX system.

4. Agilent Technologies: Energy Consumption of the Agilent 1260 Infinity III Prime LC System

• Technical note

Abstract

The Agilent 1260 Infinity III Prime LC System features the Agilent InfinityLab Assist—a module that automates tasks, facilitates maintenance, and assists in troubleshooting, thereby increasing the system's operational efficiency and uptime. To assess the energy consumption of these added benefits, the 1260 Infinity III Prime LC System was compared with the Waters Alliance iS HPLC System. The energy use was measured during different operational states of a typical laboratory day. Results indicate that the Agilent system consumed less energy across all states compared to the Waters system, making it a superior choice for laboratories seeking to work more economically and sustainably.

Introduction

Modern HPLC systems are more than sheer sample analyzers. Instrument sensors collect nonanalytical data to monitor the wear and tear of consumable parts such as pump seals, needle seats, or detector lamps, and notify users if a change is due. Control software integrates features that facilitate system equilibration, shut down the system after analysis, or automate daily tasks such as priming the pump.

The InfinityLab Assist elevates this assistance to the next level. This slim module added to the LC stack features a dedicated processor and large touch screen, which makes interacting with the LC system faster, more accessible, and more convenient than interacting through a PC–independently of the chromatography data system (CDS) connected to the LC. Automated tasks to start up and shut down the system, guided maintenance, and assisted troubleshooting are just three of many exciting features of the InfinityLab Assist described in a dedicated white paper.¹

All the benefits of saved time, increased confidence, and ease of use with the InfinityLab Assist might be contrasted with how much the extra module will add to the energy consumption of the LC. To shed light on this question, this technical overview presents the energy consumption of the 1260 Infinity III Prime LC System under typical use conditions. The same conditions are applied to the Waters Alliance iS HPLC—a competitor system that also features a touch screen for easier operation. As in previous Agilent publications discussing energy consumption of LC systems^2,3,
the analytical method was not optimized to the lowest energy consumption possible but was intended to represent a realistic use case over a typical day.

Conclusion

The energy consumption of the Agilent 1260 Infinity III Prime LC System was measured during Idle and Run states, applying typical conditions of an analytical UHPLC method. For comparison, the same method was run on a Waters Alliance iS HPLC System. Energy consumption in different operational states (Idle, Ready, and Run), as well as overall consumption per day and per sample was lower on the Agilent system. Doubling the number of measured samples per day resulted in an energy consumption increase below 10%, which underlines that an LC is most efficiently used if it measures samples all day instead of running idle. The InfinityLab Assist can help increase the uptime of the LC by adding automated tasks, maintenance feedback, and assisted troubleshooting to increase confidence and ease of use.

5. Waters Corporation: Mapping phosphorylation of peptide biomarkers corresponding with glioblastoma tumours using data-dependent acquisition and multi-reflecting time-of-flight mass spectrometry

• Application

INTRODUCTION

Glioblastoma is an aggressive form of brain tumor with little therapeutic options available, and correspondingly the 5-year survival rate remains <10% of those diagnosed, whilst the median life expectancy is 15 months.¹ Phosphorylation is a key post-translational modification (PTM) that is involved in numerous processes, such as activation of key enzymes/kinases for example. Hence, phosphorylation sites are important targets for the regulation and development of glioma and may offer insight for new targeted therapies to perturb specific cellular pathways.²

Profiling of phosphorylated residues using mass spectrometry can be problematic due to the labile nature of the phosphoryl group. For example, during collision induced dissociation the group can be lost (H₃PO₄ or HPO₃ + H₂O) resulting in a neutral loss of –98Da. When combined with data independent approaches (DIA) approaches and complex spectra, it can make identification of phosphorylated residues difficult. However, utilising data dependent acquisition (DDA) mode allows relation of the precursor m/z and that resulting from a neutral loss to that of the quadrupole set mass, facilitating identification of phosphorylated peptides.³

Here, we describe an LC-MS workflow using the Xevo™ MRT Mass Spectrometer; a novel benchtop high resolution, high mass accuracy platform for accurately and characterizing post-translational modifications whilst also providing corresponding quantitative data (Figure 1).

CONCLUSION

Phosphopeptide enrichment from human glioblastoma cell lines was successfully implemented using Fe(iii)-NTA spin columns. The ACQUITY Premier System demonstrated excellent non-adsorption of phosphopeptides and in tandem with data dependent acquisition successfully profiled and localised sites of phosphorylation. The Xevo MRT Mass Spectrometer provided mass resolution of >70,000 FWHM at fast scan speeds of 20 Hz and allowed for confident identification of both precursor and product ions.