Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption and Ionization Mass Spectrometry and Its Applications in Chemistry

The present paper gives a summary of the potentialities of matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS). Mass spectrometric information on different chemical and biochemical species are obtained with LDI-MS. Sulfonic acids, polysaccharides, oligonucleotides, and peptides were measured as negatively or positively charged ions in a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS). The amount of sample for a measurement lies between 50 pmol and 100 fmol and is, thus, comparable with other analytical and mass spectrometric methods. The large mass range from 0.6 kDa up to 200 kDa is accessible with LDI-MS. Molecular-weight determination can be done with an accuracy of less than 0.2%. Comparison with RP HPLC reveals the power of LDI-MS as an analytical tool