March 2024 Mass Spec Proteomics
Comparison of the main platforms for Mass Spectrometry Proteomics
Less than a year go, Thermo Fisher announced they were bringing a new flagship Mass Spectrometry (MS) machine to the market: the Orbitrap Astral. Bruker answered by bringing their timsTOF Ultra, and these two instruments now are at the forefront of high-resolution Mass Spec Proteomics. Here we describe what other instruments and providers are there that are similar to these two.
In order to understand what different segments of the MS market exist, some people have attempted to categorize it in the following categories:
Hybrid Mass Spectrometry: this category includes Triple Quadrupole (Tandem), Quadrupole TOF (Q-TOF), and FTMS (Fourier Transform Mass Spectrometry).
Single Mass Spectrometry: this category includes ION Trap, Quadrupole, and Time-of-Flight (TOF) technologies.
Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS).
Major players in the market are companies like Thermo Fisher, Bruker, Agilent, Danaher (via SCIEX), Waters, Shimadzu Scientific or PerkinElmer.
Thermo Fisher Orbitrap Astral
The Thermo Fisher Orbitrap Astral is a high-resolution mass spectrometer with specifications such as a mass range of 40-8,000 m/z, mass accuracy of less than 3 ppm RMS with external calibration, and a mass resolution of up to 480,000 at m/z 200, with Scan Rates of up to 200 Hz. Thermo claims that it can assay a whole proteome with a depth of 12,000 proteins in an hour, and can quantify over 8,000 proteins from 80 single cells in 24 hours. We will see more of the mention of Single Cell Proteomics (SCP) later on in this document. As a comparison of the Orbitrap Astral capabilities, the Orbitrap Elite offers a mass range of m/z 50-2,000 and up to m/z 200-4,000, and resolutions of up to 240,000 at m/z 400.
Thermo has already other offerings in MS, such as the Ascend Tribid MS, The Exploris or the Lumos: