| Abstract
| - A preparative mass spectrometer for microarray fabrication is reported. The instrument includes an atmosphericpressure ionization source, a linear ion trap mass analyzer, an ion collection surface positioning system, and asurface loading chamber with independent vacuum pumping. It was designed for the production of protein arraysusing the ion soft-landing technique to collect ions on asurface after separation by mass/charge ratio. Smallmicroarrays have been prepared by isolating and softlanding individual protein or peptide ions after electrospray ionization of mixtures. The composition and purityof the separated materials has been confirmed usingindependent external mass spectrometric analysis of rinsesolutions of the collected spots, either by the new methodof electrosonic spray ionization MS or by nanosprayionization MS. The ability to retain bioactivity in the mass-selected and collected biomolecules has been demonstrated in particular cases. The reported instrument hasalso been characterized as an analytical mass spectrometer.
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