This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for targeted analysis of ions using tandem mass spectrometry.
Triple quadrupole mass spectrometry is a well established analytical technique for the targeted analysis of complex mixtures. In a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, ions are generated from an ion source and injected into a first quadrupole analyzer. Here, a narrow mass range (m/z)) is selected and this narrow mass range enters a second stage which comprises a gas filled collision cell. Fragment ions generated by collisions with gas enter a second quadrupole analyzer where a particular fragment is selected for detection.
The triple quadrupole technique permits the isolation of precursor and corresponding fragment ions of interest, thus providing a robust quantitative method for target analysis, in the case that the targets for analysis are known but are present at very low levels compared to other analytes.
A drawback of this analytical method is that only a narrow window of m/z is isolated in the first stage, with all other m/z being lost on the quadrupole rods. This wasteful operation hinders rapid quantitation analysis where multiple target compounds need to be analyzed within a limited time. The quadrupoles must in each case be set to accept a different range of m/z, and effective duty cycles are quite low (perhaps 0.1%-10%, depending upon the number of targets).
An alternative to the traditional triple quadrupole mass spectrometer involves simultaneous acquisition of all fragments from all precursors in one high resolution, high mass accuracy spectrum. Once that single spectrum has been obtained, it can be searched to try to identify ions of a target m/z. Analyzers having sufficient resolution and mass accuracy to allow implementation of this effect include the Orbitrap™ electrostatic trap analyzer and the time-of-flight (TOF) analyzer. However, even with such instruments (resolving power >50,000 to 100,000 and mass accuracy below 2 ppm or even better), the extremely large ranges of concentrations in modern targeted analysis experiments mean that existing so-called “all mass” analyzers cannot rival the triple quadrupole device in terms of linearity, dynamic range and detection limits for a specific m/z of interest. For TOF analyzers, the limitations result from low transmission and detection electronics constraints. For the Orbitrap™, the difficulty is primarily the limited charge capacity of any external trapping device.
One way of improving throughput of mass analysis is to carry out MS/MS where the ion beam is split into packets in accordance with the packets' m/z. A first packet is then fragmented without loss of another packet, or in parallel with another packet. The splitting of the ion beam into packets can be achieved by the use of a scanning device which stores ions of a broad mass range. Suitable devices for implementing this scanning are a 3D ion trap, such as is disclosed for example in WO-A-2003/103,010, a linear trap having radial ejection as is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,157,698, a pulsed ion mobility spectrometer (see, for example, WO-A-00/70335 or US-A-2003/0213900), a slowed down linear trap (see WO-A-2004/085,992) or a multi-reflection time of flight mass spectrometer such as described in WO-A-2004/008,481.
In each case, the first stage of mass analysis is followed by fast fragmentation in a collision cell for example (preferably, a collision cell having an axial gradient), or by a pulsed laser. The resulting fragments are analyzed using, for example, another TOF mass spectrometer, but on a much faster time scale than the scanning duration (known as “nested times”). The performance is still however compromised because only a very limited time is allocated for each scan (typically, 10-20 μs).
These approaches of so-called “2-Dimensional MS” seem to provide throughput without compromising sensitivity, unlike the more traditional multi-channel MS/MS arrangement wherein a number of parallel mass analyzers (typically ion traps) are used to select one precursor each and then scan out the fragments from that precursor to an individual detector such as the ion trap array disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,506 or the multiple traps disclosed in US-A-2003/089,846.
All known 2-Dimensional MS techniques suffer however from the relatively low resolution of precursor selection (not better that unit resolution) and the relatively low resolving power of fragment analysis (not more than a few thousands). Also, these known 2-Dimensional MS techniques are based on the use of trapping devices to provide a high duty cycle, and the cycle time is defined by the cycle time of the slowest analyzer. Modern ion sources can produce ion currents of the order of hundreds of picoAmps, that is, in excess of 109 elementary charges per second. Thus, if the full cycle of scanning through the entire mass range of interest is 5 ms, then such trapping devices should in principle be able to accumulate up to 5 million elementary charges and still allow efficient precursor selection.
WO-A-2008/059246 describes an arrangement that permits high performance simultaneous isolation of multiple ion species, either for subsequent detection or fragmentation. In the disclosed arrangement, ions are injected into a multi-reflection electrostatic trap which reflects ions back and forth along an axis. Ions of species of interest are isolated by appropriate control of an electrostatic gate which diverts ions in accordance with their period of oscillation within the trap, along first or second ion paths respectively.
Against this background, the present invention provides, in a first aspect, a method of tandem mass spectrometry in accordance with claim 1. The invention also extends to a tandem mass spectrometer in accordance with claim 21.
The invention is based upon the realisation that targeted analysis does not require all MS/MS spectra to be acquired independently. The instrument merely needs to deliver separated and detectable peaks for the ion species of interest. These separated precursors may have their populations mixed together again and then acquired in a single high resolution spectrum. This so called parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) allows quantification of multiple low intensity analytes in parallel, thus greatly increasing the detection limits over triple quadrupoles in massive targeting experiments.
The ions selected at the ion gate for onward transmission to the ion guide may remain in an unfragmented state upon arrival at the ion guide, and downstream of that as they are analyzed in the high resolution mass analyser. This mode greatly extends the capabilities of the above described “all-mass analysis” technique, by opening up the possibility of storing m/z of different intensities by using different duty cycles. In that way, both the unfragmented and fragmented spectra are obtained with a range of intensities that has been reduced by 1-3 orders of magnitude. For example, low-intensity peaks might be transmitted to the high resolution mass analyser after every injection, whilst high-intensity peaks might only be transmitted during 0.5-1% of all injections. The various relatively small mass range spectra obtained (each typically having its own particular attenuation scheme) can optionally then be stitched together (for example by using the technique described in WO-A-2005/093783). With a final spectrum corrected for these differences in transmissions, such “spectrum stitching” allows for a significant extension to the dynamic range of analysis.
In addition, the technique employed provides sufficient time to fragment ions, and in particular provides sufficient time to employ such recently developed “slow” techniques as Electron Transfer Dissociation (ETD) or infrared multiphoton dissociation (IRMPD).
Thus in accordance with some preferred embodiments of the present invention, some or all of the precursor ions allowed to pass through the ion gate may be fragmented downstream thereof. In one preferred embodiment, the ion guide comprises a fragmentation cell and an ion trap (which may optionally be a second ion trap) downstream of that fragmentation cell. Precursor ions of interested are then selected by the ion gate, and passed to the fragmentation cell where some or all of the precursor ions are fragmented. The fragment ions (and any remaining precursor ions) are then analysed by the high resolution mass analyser. Most preferably, the fragment ions are stored in the (second) ion trap so that, for example, particular low abundance species can be augmented in that (second) ion trap through multiple cycles of the technique, prior to high resolution mass analysis. In additional or alternative embodiments, augmentation of precursor ions may take place as well or instead, in the ion accumulation means, either by using a fragmentation cell but operating it in a low energy mode so that ions are not fragmented, and/or by bypassing the fragmentation cell (or omitting it entirely) and employing a second ion trap.
Thus, multiple m/z ranges can be selected (rather than 1, as in quadrupole mass filters) from a wide mass range of precursors. Each selected precursor species can be fragmented—optionally at a respective optimal energy—and the fragments can then be combined in a single broad spectrum fragment population. This single fragment population can then be analyzed in a high resolution mass analyzer such as a TOF, an orbital electrostatic trap such as the Orbitrap™, or FT-ICR mass spectrometer. Thus a method and apparatus is proposed that addresses on the one hand the limited space—charge capacity of trapping analyzers, and the limited dynamic range of TOFs on the other, by selecting a limited but nevertheless plural number of ion species of analytical interest for fragmentation and subsequent parallel analysis. For example, between 10 and 100 precursor species could be analyzed together in this technique.
The present invention may provide for a method of tandem mass spectrometry, comprising the steps of a) generating precursor ions in an ion source; b) trapping the precursor ions in an ion trap; c) ejecting the precursor ions from the ion trap towards an ion guide, via an ion gate, so that the precursor ions arrive at the said ion gate only once on their passage to the said ion guide, the precursor ions arriving as a temporally separated plurality of ion packets each containing ions of a respective one of a plurality of different ion species; d) controlling the ion gate so as to sequentially select from the plurality of ion packets arriving at the ion gate, a subset of a plurality of ion packets deriving from a subset of precursor ion species of interest; e) mixing the selected subset of a plurality of ion packets in the ion guide; and f) analyzing the resulting ion population derived from the mixed selected subset of ion packets in a high resolution mass analyzer.
It may also provide for a tandem mass spectrometer comprising an ion source for generating precursor ions; an ion trap arranged downstream of the ion source, for trapping precursor ions from the ion source; a single pass ion gate, arranged in a path of precursor ions ejected from the ion trap towards a downstream ion guide, the precursor ions arriving at the said ion gate as a plurality of temporally separated ion packets each containing ions of a respective one of a plurality of different ion species; an ion gate controller configured to control the single pass ion gate so as to permit passage of only a subset of ion packets containing a respective subset of a plurality of precursor ion species of interest; wherein the ion guide is configured to receive precursor ions that are permitted to pass through the single pass ion gate; the tandem mass spectrometer further comprising: a high resolution mass analyzer arranged to analyze the ions or their fragments.
The invention may be put in practice in a number of ways, and some embodiments will now be described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
a and 3b show, respectively, top and side views of a third embodiment of a tandem mass spectrometer for targeted analysis of precursor ions, including a non trapping ion accelerator; and
a and 4b show, respectively, schematic views of DC and RF ion guides to provide an alternative means for orthogonal acceleration of ions to the non trapping ion accelerator of
Referring first to
The voltage of the aperture 22 is reduced to allow ions to pass into the second ion trap 21 and then is increased again to retain (store) remaining precursor ions from the ion source in the first ion trap 20.
After no more than 1 millisecond of cooling time, ions in the second ion trap 21 are ejected orthogonally to the axis of that second ion trap 21. The axis of the second ion trap 21 is, for the purposes of this description, the axis along which the trap rods are elongated. Ejection may be achieved in a number of ways.
Firstly, ions may be ejected orthogonally by applying a DC voltage across the rf rods of the second ion trap 21, but without switching off the rf voltages applied to those rods. Alternatively, the same technique may be applied, but also accompanied by rapid switching off of the rf voltages. This technique is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,498,571, the contents of which are incorporated by reference. In that case, it is preferable that the second ion trap 21 is a C-trap as in WO-A-2008/081,334. Another alternative to permit orthogonal ejection from the second ion trap 21 is to apply a dipolar excitation to stretched rf rods as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,425. The amplitude of dipolar excitation may be scanned to provide between 2 and 10×105 amu/second mass scanning speed. The preferred arrangement of tandem mass spectrometer for this variant of orthogonal ejection is shown in
Although preferred embodiments of the present invention employ orthogonal ejection from the second ion trap 21, it is also possible for ions to be ejected axially from the second ion trap 21. However, this arrangement typically allows a lower space charge of the ejected pulse. The space charge limit of the second ion trap preferably reaches between 1 and 3×106 elementary charges. This corresponds to an allowed ion flow of between 1 and 3×109 elementary charges per second, equivalent to an ion current of between 200 and 600 pA. This matches the typical brightness of modern ion sources such as the electrospray and MALDI ion sources described above.
Following orthogonal ejection from the second ion trap 21, ions are directed through an optional electric sector 25 into a single- or multi-reflection time of flight (MR-TOF) analyzer 30 to allow time of flight separation of ions in accordance with their mass to charge ratio, whilst maintaining a relatively compact package. In alternative embodiments, a multi-sector time of flight mass analyser (e.g. MULTUM), or a multi-deflection TOF, or an orbital time of flight mass analyser may be used as analyser 30. Suitable devices are described in WO-A-2009/081143 or WO-A-2010/136534.
Downstream of the MR-TOF 30 is located an ion gate 40. In the embodiment of
The ion gate 40 and the pulsing device 42 may, optionally, be integrated into an energy lift which increases the potential (relative to the flight tube) to a level sufficient for transfer to a downstream collision cell 50, for ions which are in the vicinity of the ion gate 40.
The ion species to be selected can be deduced by first obtaining a panoramic spectrum of precursor ions. The relative intensities of precursor ions in that panoramic spectrum can also advantageously be used to provide for automatic gain control. In particular, in order to adjust the numbers of precursor ions and their fragments relative to one another, so as to provide similar relative abundances, some of the precursor ion species may be transmitted during only a single cycle of the tandem mass spectrometer, whereas other species may be transmitted in multiple cycles. This may be further understood by way of a simple example. Consider a panoramic spectrum of precursor ions in which a first ion species, species 1, has a relative abundance of approximately 40×the relative abundance of a second precursor ion species, species 2. In order that roughly similar numbers of packets of ion species 1 and ion species 2 are ultimately analyzed, ions of ion species 1 will only be allowed to pass through the ion gate 40 during one of forty cycles of the arrangement of
As an alternative to this ‘digital’ dosing of ions, an ‘analogue’ dosing is also possible, wherein the ion gate 40 provides not “on/off” switching of the ion beam but rather controllable attenuation of beam intensity by variable voltage. This dependence of attenuation on voltage could be calibrated using a calibration mixture and then used for real analytes.
In both variants, in the final output spectra, measured intensities are preferably scaled back by these attenuation factors to provide accurate quantitative representation. It is possible to stitch together adjacent relatively narrow mass range spectra to produce a broader mass range (“panoramic”) spectrum. One suitable technique for doing this is described in WO-A-2005/093783. With a final spectrum corrected for these differences in transmissions, such a stitched panaromic spectrum permits a greatly extended dynamic range of analysis.
In preference, in the arrangement of
The collision cell 50 into which a precursor ion species are selectively gated is preferably a gas filled multipole with a DC field to collect ions at the end of the collision cell 50, where they mix. The collision cell 50 interfaces with a high resolution mass analyzer 70, with the optional use of an external ion trapping device 60 between the collision cell 50 and the high resolution mass analyzer 70. If the energy spread of ions can be reduced down to a few tens of eV, then nitrogen or argon gas may be used as a collision gas within the collision cell 50. However, for energy spread of several tens of eV or above, it is preferable to employ helium as a collision gas as it allows much higher collision energy.
After all of the selected precursor ions have been fragmented and cooled in the collision cell 50, they are transferred, via the optional external device 60, into the high resolution mass analyzer 70. By “high resolution analyzer” is meant any device capable of providing mass analysis with a resolving power in the tens or hundreds of thousands, such as (but not limited to) an orbital electrostatic trap, such as an Orbitrap™ analyzer, a TOF analyzer of any type, such as an orthogonal-acceleration TOF analyzer, with or without an ion mirror, a multi-reflection time of flight mass analyzer, a multi-sector time of flight mass analyzer, a multi-deflection time of flight mass analyzer, or, alternatively, a Fourier transform mass analyzer, or otherwise. The optimum setting of resolving power depends on the complexity of the resulting mixture, and typically should be at least 10,000, and preferably at least 20,000, even for simple mixtures. For several tens of overlapping MS/MS spectra, it is anticipated that optimum resolving power will exceed 50,000.
Where the high resolution mass analyzer 70 is an Orbitrap™ mass analyzer, the optional external device 60 is present and is preferably an rf-only storage trap such as a c-trap, again as described in WO-A-2008/081334. In that case, multiple ejection pulses from the second ion trap 21 are fragmented in the fragmentation cell, the fragments then being accumulated in the c-trap 60. Following accumulation of all of the fragments in the c-trap 60, they are injected as a single pulse into the Orbitrap analyzer 70 for acquisition as a single spectrum.
Alternatively, where the high resolution mass analyzer 70 is a TOF mass analyzer, then fragment ions in the collision cell 50 may be continuously leaked from that collision cell 50, the ion stream being continuously sampled at a frequency of between 1 and 100 kHz by an orthogonal accelerator for continuous acquisition. For long flight lengths and/or multi reflection TOFs, again a c-trap or other rf storage device may be used as the external device 60. It is not necessary, in that case, to synchronise the operation of the injection of the fragment ions into the TOF mass analyzer 70, with ejection from the second ion trap 21.
As still a further option, the ions may be transferred without fragmentation into the external device 60. That is, ions are allowed to pass through the fragmentation cell 50 without fragmentation, or alternatively they may be caused to bypass the fragmentation cell 50. This can be achieved by reducing the amplitude of the rf voltage on the rods of the fragmentation cell 50, or by using an additional ion path (not shown) with rf only transport multipoles. This is the preferable mode for obtaining a pre-scan with correct (unscaled) intensities of precursor ions.
As a result of the technique described above, each spectrum obtained by the high resolution mass analyzer 70 represents the parallel (i.e. simultaneous) acquisition of fragments spectra from between 10 and 100 precursor ion species, with each precursor having roughly similar numbers of ions by using the automatic gain control (AGC) technique described. This results in turn in an increase of duty cycle of mass selection by a factor G, where G is similar to the number of precursor ion species selected for parallel acquisition and analysis. Such an increase in duty cycle represents a significant gain in analysis time and sensitivity.
As with the embodiment of
In the embodiment of
In contrast to the arrangement of
Following fragmentation of the precursor ions entering the fragmentation cell, they are injected into an external device 60. From here they are in turn injected into a high resolution mass analyzer 70 for production of a composite mass spectrum of all fragment species together.
In the embodiment of
The requirement of high throughput of the second ion trap 21 may be relaxed if some additional removal of intense ion peaks can be carried out either within the second ion trap 21 or in previous ion stages. For example, low mass cut off rf optics in the ion source 10, the first ion trap 20, or the second ion trap 21 may be employed to carry out coarse mass filtering. Alternatively, resonant excitation of certain mass to charge ratios may be employed within the ion source 10, the first ion trap 20, and/or the second ion trap 21. As a further alternative, a small DC voltage may be applied to a quadrupole to provide both low and high mass cut offs again either in the ion source 10, the first ion trap 20, or the second ion trap 21. The main requirement in any such incidence of pre-filtering is that, for every ion species of interest, the average ion number N in a pulse at the entrance to the fragmentation cell 50 should undergo small cumulative losses over the previous stages of the mass spectrometer 1. Mathematically, this may be expressed as Iin>e.z.N.f<<Iin/G. Here, e is the elementary charge (1.602×10-19 Coulomb), z is the charge state of an ion species having a particular m/z, f is the frequency of ejection from the second ion trap 21, and Iin is the ion current on the exit from the ion source 10. With high frequency RF voltages applied to the first and second ion traps 20, 21 (for example, between 2 and 5 MHz), appropriate wide slots and correct synchronization, it is feasible to reach an ion current Iout=e.z.N.f=(0.2 . . . 0.5) Iin. In other words, embodiments of the present invention provide a benefit over triple quadrupoles even if only a limited number of precursors are selected.
The approach described above is also compatible with relatively slow fragmentation methods such as electron transfer dissociation (ETD), OzID (ozone-induced dissociation), IRMPD, UV dissociation, and so forth, and greatly enhances the utility of these “slow” fragmentation methods for targeted analysis. Currently, there is very limited use for such techniques in targeted analysis due to the long activation time necessary. To provide similar fragmentation efficiency for different precursors, each ETD experiment could be carried out for the same charge state of all ions, e.g. only ions with charge +3 would be selected for introduction into the fragmentation cell 50 in a first experiment, with +4 in a second experiment, etc. For IRMPD and UV dissociation, targeted precursors should in preference have similar dissociation constants (that is, cross sections) etc. It is possible also to have several different experiments of this type in each spectrum of the high resolution analyser.
Application of the methods described above is widespread. For example they may be used in peptide quantitation, analysis of complex mixtures in clinical, food, environmental and forensic applications. In use, the list of mass to charge ratios of precursors and fragments is uploaded into a computer (not shown) which directly or indirectly controls the controller 100, preferably together with corresponding retention times in a liquid chromatograph (LC) and their ranges of variation. Then, one full-MS spectrum without fragmentation is used to obtain an overview spectrum and an estimation of peak intensities. After that, one or multiple cycles using the techniques described above are carried out, depending upon AGC considerations as discussed. For mixtures of biopolymers such as peptides, it would be necessary to generate the list for each injection into the high resolution analyser in such a way that selected precursors have minimum overlap in their fragments, i.e. that for each precursor there should be at least one unique fragment that could confirm its identity along with the accurate mass of the precursor.
The method could also widely be applied without fragmentation, thus then providing reliable identification by the determination of an accurate mass of analytes, and by minimizing the risk of false positives because of the high resolving power at which analysis is carried out. One example includes a pseudo-panoramic mass spectrum of very high dynamic range, wherein the entire mass range is split into tens of hundreds of sub-ranges, each sub range being allocated a similar number of charges. Following gating of the ions in accordance with the allocated charges, a panoramic spectrum is acquired by the high resolution analyzer, with the most intense peaks in the original panoramic spectrum receiving a (much) lower number of injections compared with the least intense peaks. The acquired spectrum is then corrected according to this difference in the number of injections, thus restoring relative intensities of ions but also allowing the least intense peaks to be measured with a much higher signal to noise ratio if they fall outside of the vicinity of intense peaks.
The embodiments of
Referring then to
Ions are generated, as previously described, in the ion source 10. From there they are ejected into an orthogonal accelerator 23. In the embodiment of
Due to the very high ion currents present, it is highly desirable that there are no grids in the ion path within the TOF 30, so as to avoid the presentation of metallic surfaces upon which ions may be deposited, in the ion path from source to detector.
On the return path from the mirror 32, ions are gated by an ion gate 40, with ions of interest being allowed to enter a fragmentation cell 50 and undesired ions being deflected to an ion stop 41. Preferably, the ion gate 40 is gridless and contains a pulsed electrode 42 surrounded by apertures that limit the penetration of the field from the pulsed electrode 42. Optionally, these apertures could have time-dependant voltages applied to them, in order to compensate field penetration from the pulsed electrode 42.
After selection on the basis of their arrival time, ions enter a decelerating lens 43 where their energy is reduced to the desired value. Although not shown, the ions may also undergo deceleration prior to entry into the fragmentation cell 50 in the embodiments shown in
A typical example of a suitable deceleration lens is presented in P. O'Connor et al. J. Amer. Soc. Mass Spectrom., 1991, 2, 322-335. For a 1 metre flight path in the TOF 30, a resolution of selection of 500-1000 is expected, which is considered adequate for most applications. Due to the y-shape of the ion trajectory, ions arrive in the plane above the orthogonal accelerator 23 such that their initial energy can be chosen independently of the acceleration energy. This differs from conventional orthogonal acceleration TOFs, and allows an improvement in the duty cycle and transmission of ions. Typically, the TOF 30 operates at about a 10 kHz repetition rate so that each pulse ejects up to 105-106 elementary charges.
Because the ion packets typically arrive at the fragmentation cell 50 as elongated threads, consideration should be given to a design of the fragmentation cell 50 so that it might accept such packets. In presently preferred embodiments, this is achieved by implementing the fragmentation cell 50 as an elongated collision cell with differential pumping, similar to the collision cell described in WO-A-04/083,805 and U.S. Pat. No. B-7,342,224.
Following fragmentation in the fragmentation cell 50, ions are mixed together and analysed in the same manner as is described above in respect of the arrangements of
a and 4b show first and second arrangements of non-trapping orthogonal ion accelerators 23 either of which may be employed as alternatives to the non-trapping orthogonal accelerator 23 of
In
b shows another alternative arrangement in which, again, ions arrive from the ion source in a direction “y” and in which RF potentials on the electrodes 25, 24 are held the same until extraction pulses are applied. In particular, in
In a preferred embodiment, the accelerator 23 of
Whilst some specific embodiments have been described, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that various modifications or additions may be contemplated. For example, not only might single- and multi-reflection mirrors be used in the arrangement of
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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1110662.2 | Jun 2011 | GB | national |
The present application is a continuation under 35 U.S.C. §120 and claims the priority benefit of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/622,444, filed Feb. 13, 2015, which is a continuation under 35 U.S.C. §120 and claims the priority benefit of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/128,330, filed Dec. 20, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,957,369 granted Feb. 17, 2015, which is a National Stage application under 35 U.S.C. §371 of PCT Application No. PCT/EP2012/061746, filed Jun. 19, 2012. The disclosures of each of the foregoing applications are incorporated herein by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 14622444 | Feb 2015 | US |
Child | 14813513 | US | |
Parent | 14128330 | Dec 2013 | US |
Child | 14622444 | US |