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Updated: Jan 4, 2026

The Use of Gas Chromatography to Analyze Compositional Changes of Fatty Acids in Rat Liver Tissue during Pregnancy
Published on: March 13, 2014
Evaluation of performance and validity limits of gas chromatography electron ionisation with Orbitrap detection for
Franck Merlier1, Stéphane Octave1, Bernadette Tse Sum Bui1
1Sorbonne Universités, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, Génie Enzymatique et Cellulaire (GEC), UMR-CNRS 7025, CS 60319, 60203, Compiègne Cedex, France.
Rationale:
While the GC-Orbitrap, marketed in 2015, represents a technological breakthrough in terms of sensitivity, resolution and mass stability, many studies have reported ion ratio modification in mass spectra using the standard 70 eV electron ionisation.
Methods:
We studied the influence of the acquisition and sample parameters leading to these modifications on fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs).
Results:
FAMEs showed that these variations in relative intensities of ions were related to the acquisition parameters such as the mass range and the offset values of the C-TRAP, but also directly related to the column concentration of the sample, and especially that it was molecule-dependent. Advantageously, it is possible to use this feature to promote the molecular ions of FAMEs sometimes not present in a spectrum under electron ionisation at 70 eV.
Conclusions:
The 70 eV electron ionisation mass spectra from the GC-Orbitrap were clearly molecule-dependent and could be due to metastable ions during storage states in the C-TRAP.
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