Laser Ablation Electrospray Ionizationとは 意味・読み方・使い方

Laser Ablation Electrospray Ionization (LAESI) is an ambient ionization method for mass spectrometry that combines laser ablation from a mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser with a secondary electrospray ionization (ESI) process. The mid-IR laser is used to generate gas phase particles which are then ionized through interactions with charged droplets from the ESI source. LAESI was developed by Professor Akos Vertes and Dr. Peter Nemes in 2007 and is now marketed commercially by Protea Biosciences, Inc. LAESI is a novel ionization source for mass spectrometry (MS) that has been used to perform MS imaging of plants, tissues, cell pellets, and even single cells. In addition, LAESI has been used to analyze historic documents and untreated biofluids such as urine and blood.. The technique of LAESI is performed at atmospheric pressure and therefore overcomes many of the obstacles of traditional MS techniques, including extensive and invasive sample preparation steps and the use of high vacuum. LAESI can be used to perform MS analysis of many different classes of compounds ranging from small molecules, such as pharmaceuticals, saccharides, lipids, and metabolites to larger biomolecules like peptides and proteins. LAESI has also been shown to have a quantitative dynamic range of 4 decades and a limit of detection (LOD) of 8 fmol with verapamil, a small pharmaceutical molecule. The technique has a lateral resolution of <200 μm for imaging applications and has been used for 3D imaging of plant tissues. Additionally, in cell-by-cell LAESI imaging experiments single cells can be used as the pixels of the molecular image. This LAESI application uses etched optical fibers to produce laser spot sizes of <50 µm to deliver the laser energy and has also been utilized in single cell analysis experiments.