New Massworks sCLIPS for High Resolution FT-ICR Mass Spectrometers

Cerno Bioscience, in co-operation with Dr. Vladimir Tolstikov at the Genome Center, UC Davis, has demonstrated that the recently launched MassWorks™ sCLIPS™ (self Calibrated Line-shape Isotope Profile Search) capability significantly improves formula ID on high end FT-ICR MS systems. By using Cerno’s patented calibration techniques, users of High Mass Accuracy (HMA) instruments can now dramatically improve the results of formula identification and easily obtain higher quality,
reproducible data through accurate line-shape calibration.
Using MassWorks sCLIPS, the latest addition to the MassWorks mass spectrometry software suite, the collaborative research was able to further improve formula ID by the use of Spectral Accuracy and thus help achieve unique formula determination. MassWorks was originally launched in 2006, and received the prestigious Editors’ Choice Bronze Award at PITTCON 2006. MassWorks is an easy-to-use post acquisition software system using Cerno’s patented MS Integrity calibration
technology to work directly with data from a wide range of mass spectrometers.
Formula ID normally requires accurate mass measurements typically provided by high resolution Time-of-Flight (TOF), Orbitrap or FT-ICR instrumentation. With its resolving power reaching into 1,000,000:1,
an FT-ICR instrument is capable of sub-ppm mass accuracy, a level considered sufficient by most high end users. However, where true unknown formula ID is required in applications such as natural product
or metabolomics research, even such impressive levels of mass accuracy could lead to many possible formulas, especially at masses of 400Da or above. Cerno’s sCLIPS technology, when applied to FT-ICR MS
data, corrects the instrument line-shape and enables exact isotope modelling when comparing the MS response of an unknown ion against theoretically calculated responses for all possible candidate formulas.
This allows spectral differences as small as 0.1% to be measured which enables highly confident formula ID. One of the benefits of the approach is that it requires no known calibration ions, and instead
utilises the fully resolved monoisotopic peak of the unknown ion itself for the sCLIPS line-shape calibration.