Low Molecular Weight: Analysis of Small Molecules including Metabolomic Analysis
While electron ionisation (EI) coupled with GC/MS is the main technique for volatile compounds, the BMSF has expertise in a particularly sensitive and selective method based on negative ion mass spectrometry. This involves tagging the molecules of interest with a group that makes those molecules capture electrons and so form negative ions. The electron capture negative ion MS technique (ECNI MS) can be used effectively for many metabolite/marker and clinical mass spectrometry studies. Polar small molecules (involatile) are analysed by LC/MS (see below) using ionisation methods such as ESI and APCI. These methods are often useful in environmental analysis, metabolite analysis etc.
