Revealing the potential of capillary electrophoresis/mass spectrometry: the tipping point
Résumé
Capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry (CE-MS) hyphenation remains a minor technique compared to liquid chromatographymass spectrometry (LC-MS), which represents nowadays the standard instrumentation, regardless of its introduction thirty years ago. However, from a theoretical point of view CE coupling should be quite favorable especially with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). At time, the sensitivity provided by CE-MS was often limited, due to hyphenation requirements, which at some point appeared to disqualify CE-MS from benefiting of the performance gain driving the evolution of MS instruments. However, this context has been significantly modified in a matter of a few years. The development of innovative CE-MS interfacing systems has enabled an important improvement regarding to sensitivity and reinforced robustness in order to provide an instrumentation accessible to the largest scientific community. Because of the unique selectivity delivered by the electrophoretic separation, CE-MS has revealed to be particularly relevant for the analysis of biological molecules. The conjunction of these aspects is motivating the interest of CE-MS analysis and shows that CE-MS is mature enough to enrich the toolbox of analytical techniques for the analysis of complex biological samples. Here we discuss the characteristics of the major types of high sensitivity CE-ESI-MS instrumentation and emphasize the late evolution and future positioning of CE-MS analysis for the characterization of biological molecules like peptides and proteins, through some pertinent applications.
Domaines
Chimie analytique
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