Lipidomics utilizing higher throughput methodologies typically result in a significant loss of annotated species, as either the chromatographic resolution is reduced and/or the MS/MS acquisition rate of the mass spectrometer is insufficient for the increased elution concurrency. In addition, the strategy for determining in-depth structural information can involve multiple injections and methodologies.
This work is based on a data-dependent workflow that fully leverages a hybrid collision cell containing the Zeno trap (Figure1) and electron activated dissociation (EAD) cell. Electron kinetic energies can be precisely tuned from 0-25 eV without chemical transfer reagents. The ability of the EAD cell to contain a high density of electrons allows for rapid reaction rates that keep up with fast chromatographic separations.
Previous work demonstrated the complete structural characterization of lipids using EAD MS/MS on the ZenoTOF 7600 system.[2] Here, the impact of the higher sensitivity Zeno MS/MS on the detection of lipids from extracted plasma samples was explored using a single injection, data-dependent acquisition (DDA) workflow. Chromatographic separations were significantly accelerated and the impact on identification rates was evaluated. The data were generated using Zeno MS/MS combined with EAD fragmentation to compare to the CID data.