Ions are generated by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/ionisation (MALDI), accelerated by a high
electric potential, and separated by the time taken to reach a detector (Time-of-Flight (ToF)).
The time-of-flight is directly proportional to the mass-to-charge ratio of an ion, and hence a mass spectrum
is obtained.
The Bruker UltraFlex MALDI-ToF/ToF instrument offers high sensitivity (~10e-15 mol) and high resolution
(routinely >15000 FWHM for m/z 1000), allowing accurate identification of peptides obtained from trypic
digests (protein fingeprints). This allows database searching to provide protein identification with high
confidence levels.
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