Quantification and Compensation of Unintentional Analyte Aggregation in Electrospray Sampling

Published

March 30, 2011

Author(s)

Mingdong M. Li, Suvajyoti S. Guha, Rebecca A. Zangmeister, Michael J. Tarlov, Michael R. Zachariah

Abstract

Electrospray (ES) sources are commonly used to introduce non-volatile materials (e.g. nanoparticles, proteins, etc.) in to the gas phase for characterization by mass spectrometry and ion mobility. Recent studies in our group using electrospray ion mobility to characterize protein aggregation in solution have raised the question as to whether the electrospray itself induces aggregation and thus corrupts the results. In this paper we develop a statistical model to determine the extent to which the ES process induces the formation of dimers and higher order aggregates. The model is validated through ES- differential mobility experiments using gold nanoparticles. The results show that the extent of droplet induced aggregation is quite severe, and that previously reported cut-off criterion are inadequate. We use the model in conjunction with experiment to show the true dimer concentration in a protein solution as a function of concentration. The model is extendable to any ES source-analytical system and to higher aggregation states.

Citation

Analytical Chemistry

Volume

45

Issue

7

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2011.566901

Local Download

Keywords

Electrospray, Aggregation, Protein

Citation

Li, M. , Guha, S. , Zangmeister, R. , Tarlov, M. and Zachariah, M. (2011), Quantification and Compensation of Unintentional Analyte Aggregation in Electrospray Sampling, Analytical Chemistry, [online], https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2011.566901 (Accessed October 14, 2025)