Novel Interface for High-Throughput Analysis of Biotherapeutics by Electrospray Mass Spectrometry

With the rapid rise of therapeutic antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates, significant investments have been made in developing workflows that utilize mass spectrometry to detect these intact molecules, the large fragments generated by their selective digestion, and the peptides generated by traditional proteomics workflows. The resultant data is used to gain insight into a wide range of parameters, including primary sequence, disulfide bonding, glycosylation patterns, biotransformation, and more. However, many of the technologies utilized to couple these workflows to mass spectrometers have significant limitations that force nonoptimal modifications to upstream sample preparation steps, limit the throughput of high-volume workflows, and prevent the harmonization of diverse experiments onto a single hardware platform. Here, we describe a new analytical platform that enables direct and high-throughput coupling to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. The SampleStream platform is compatible with both native and denaturing electrospray, operates with a throughput of up to 15 s/sample, provides extensive concentration of dilute samples, and affords similar sensitivity to comparable liquid chromatographic methods.