Fast and sensitive flow-injection mass spectrometry metabolomics by analyzing sample-specific ion distributions

Area of Science:

• Biomedical research
• Analytical chemistry
• Metabolomics

Background:

• Mass spectrometry-based metabolomics is crucial in biomedical research.
• Current chromatography-coupled methods are time-consuming, limiting high-throughput analysis.
• Flow-injection mass spectrometry (FI-MS) offers direct sample injection but faces sensitivity limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the ion competition effect limiting Orbitrap FI-MS sensitivity.
• To develop a computational approach for optimizing scan ranges in FI-MS.
• To enhance the throughput and reproducibility of metabolomics and lipidomics analyses.

Main Methods:

• Direct sample injection into the ionization source using FI-MS.
• Analysis of ion m/z value distributions.
• Computational determination of optimal scan ranges to mitigate ion competition.
• Application to serum samples for metabolomics and lipidomics.

Main Results:

• Identified and overcame ion competition effects in Orbitrap FI-MS.
• Achieved reproducible detection of ~9,000 m/z features in metabolomics.
• Achieved reproducible detection of ~10,000 m/z features in lipidomics.
• Reduced sample scan time to ~15s and duty time to ~30s, a ~50% improvement over spectral-stitching FI-MS.

Conclusions:

• The developed computational approach significantly enhances FI-MS sensitivity and throughput.
• This method facilitates high-throughput metabolomics for applications like biomarker discovery and functional genomics.
• Optimized FI-MS is a powerful tool for large-scale biomedical and lipidomics studies.