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Study of mycobacterial mycolic acids by ion mobility mass spectrometry (CAT#: STEM-ST-0178-LJX)

Introduction

Lipids are highly structurally diverse molecules involved in a wide variety of biological processes. The involvement of lipids is even more pronounced in mycobacteria, including the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which produces a highly complex and diverse set of lipids in the cell envelope. These lipids include mycolic acids, which are among the longest fatty acids in nature and can contain up to 90 carbon atoms. Mycolic acids are ubiquitously found in mycobacteria and are alpha branched and beta hydroxylated lipids. Discrete modifications, such as alpha, alpha’, epoxy, methoxy, keto, and carboxy, characterize mycolic acids at the species level. Here, we used high precision ion mobility-mass spectrometry to build a database including 206 mass-resolved collision cross sections (CCSs) of mycolic acids originating from the strict human pathogen M. tuberculosis, the opportunistic strains M. abscessus, M. marinum and M. avium, and the nonpathogenic strain M. smegmatis.




Principle

Ion mobility spectrometry–mass spectrometry (IMS-MS) is an analytical chemistry method that separates gas phase ions based on their interaction with a collision gas and their masses. In the first step, the ions are separated according to their mobility through a buffer gas on a millisecond timescale using an ion mobility spectrometer. The separated ions are then introduced into a mass analyzer in a second step where their mass-to-charge ratios can be determined on a microsecond timescale.

Applications

For studying the gas phase ion structure
For detecting the chemical warfare agents and explosives
For the analysis of proteins, peptides, drug-like molecules and nano particles
For monitoring isomeric reaction intermediates and probe their kinetics
For proteomics and pharmaceutical analysis

Procedure

1. Add sample
2. The ions in the sample are separated in the ion mobility spectrometer
3. The separated ions are introduced into the mass analyzer for detection
4. Store the detection results

Materials

• Sample Type:
Mycobacterial mycolic acids

Notes

1. Ion mobility spectrometry is also a very fast technique, making it suitable for high-throughput applications. The entire analysis can be completed in just a few minutes.
2. The method is extremely sensitive and able to detect trace amounts of contaminants that other spectrometry methods would miss.
3. The effective separation of analytes achieved with this method makes it widely applicable in the analysis of complex samples such as in proteomics and metabolomics.
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