your question, for which I have no immediate answer, begs a question raised
to me on a number of occasions over the past few years as to what is the
best set of "gold standards" for calibration of mass spectrometers used in
biopolymer analysis.
It would be interesting to hear the comments of others on this list about
the percieved need for a robust set of standards over the full mass range,
not just Ron's requirement for masses up to 1000.
I thought there was a suggestion that the ABRF QC Research Group was
looking into this question and the possibility of ABRF becoming a sponsor
or distributor of a series of biopolymer analysis standards but I have not
seen any discussion on the matter recently?
I personally think that it would be a grand idea.
Regards...Ken
>We are looking for calibration standards for masses up to about 1000 on the
>LCT (ESI-TOF). Our idea is to use a set of amino acid polymers; they should
>be stable and singly charged. A series of phenylalanine homopolymers up to
>about 6-mers, perhaps with C-terminal amide appears attractive. The same
>series with a C-terminal (for synthesis reasons) glycine or alanine would make
>a companion set for cases where the mass of interest overlaps the calibrants.
>Homopolymer series I find in catalogues are too big. Does someone know where
>to get this kind of mixture in small amounts or are there suggestions for a
>better set of standards for calibration?
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Ken I. Mitchelhill
The John Holt Protein Structure Laboratory
St. Vincent's Institute of Medical Research
41 Victoria Parade
Fitzroy 3065 Victoria
AUSTRALIA
Telephone: 61-3-9288 2480
Facsimile: 61-3-9416 2676
Email: k.mitchelhill@medicine.unimelb.edu.au
Laboratory: http://www.medstv.unimelb.edu.au/WWWDOCS/SVIMRdocs/JHPSL.html
ABRF: http://www.abrf.org
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