Considerations for electron capture dissociation efficiency in FTICR mass spectrometry

An experimental approach for increasing the efficiency of Electron Capture Dissociation (ECD) with Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS) is presented. The approach is based on manipulating the spatial distribution of an ion cloud inside an FTICR trap during electron irradiation, which is realized by using both on-resonance pre-excitation of the ions and sustained off-resonance irradiation (SORI). The achieved fragmentation efficiency is compared with the theoretical prediction. This method may be useful in biological applications of FTICR, such as identification of posttranslational modifications in proteins and de novo sequencing, where the ECD technique is most applicable. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.