Thoughts, challenges, and opportunities on metabolomics and co.

On the benefits and role of electron-induced dissociation in lipidomics

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  • Reading time:40 mins read

One of the grand challenges in metabolomics using mass spectrometry (MS) is the limited and somewhat redundant information provided by collision-induced dissociation (CID). CID is incredibly versatile and quick but tends to fragment weaker bonds, such as C-O bonds. This bias allows us to easily observe fragments indicative of specific functional groups—such as ethanolamine, phosphatidic groups, and glucuronic conjugates—that are diagnostic for certain compound…

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Ode to a 10-years old mass spectrometer

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  • Reading time:17 mins read

This year we celebrate the 10th anniversary of one of our QTOFs. It is not among the oldest mass spectrometers that we have in the lab, but it is a special case in many senses. The anniversary evoked both retrospective and prospective reflections, which I wanted to share to hear about the experience of others. The first ten years The birthday boy is an…

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The journey towards de novo structure elucidation

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  • Reading time:27 mins read

This post will describe the journey towards MSNovelist, a project I have been working on over the last two years and which is now finally available as a preprint here. MSNovelist is a de novo structure elucidation method for MS2 spectra. Background De novo indicates that molecular structures are generated directly from the MS2 spectrum without referring to a database. In contrast to existing…

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All-inclusive, turnkey processing for untargeted LC-MS

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  • Reading time:13 mins read

Imagine running a study with 100 samples by untargeted LC-MS (polar or lipids, you pick!). Data acquisition by DIA/DDA in complete in 1-2 days, and comes the step of data analysis. The minimum expectation for the software is to find all peaks across samples (rare and frequent, high and low, symmetric and tailing peaks), take care of shifts in m/z and RT, group isotopologues…

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Why do we prefer TOFs over Orbitraps for flow injection analysis?

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  • Reading time:12 mins read

Comment: Thank you for reading this. Keep in mind that this is ALL about FIA. It's an extreme case and a special niche. Don't extrapolate any of this to LC-MS, because it's mixing apples and oranges. I'll post later on "Why do we prefer Orbitraps over TOFs for LC-MSMS", and stress critical flaws of TOF detectors and TOF data analysis. For now, happy reading…

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