A comparative study on the analytical utility of atmospheric and low-pressure MALDI sources for the mass spectrometric characterization of peptides.

A comparative MS study was conducted on the analytical performance of two matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) sources that operated at either low pressure (∼1Torr) or at atmospheric pressure. In both cases, the MALDI sources were attached to a linear ion trap mass spectrometer equipped with a two-stage ion funnel. The obtained results indicate that the limits of detection, in the analysis of identical peptide samples, were much lower with the source that was operated slightly below the 1-Torr pressure.