Mass spectrometry has been extensively employed for ion-ion chemistry experiments, in which analyte ions produced from a sample are reacted with reagent ions of opposite polarity. McLuckey et al. (“Ion/Ion Chemistry of High-Mass Multiply Charged Ions, Mass Spectrometry Reviews, Vol. 17, pp. 369-407(1998)) discusses various examples of mass spectrometric studies of this type. It has been recently discovered that by selecting an appropriate reagent anion and reacting the reagent anion with a multiply charged analyte cation, a radical site is generated that induces dissociation of the analyte cation into product ions. This process, called electron transfer dissociation (ETD), is described by Hunt et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 7,534,622 for “Electron Transfer Dissociation for Biopolymer Sequence Mass Spectrometric Analysis”, as well as by Syka et al. in “Peptide and Protein Sequence Analysis by Electron Transfer Dissociation Mass Spectrometry”, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 101, no. 26, pp. 9528-9533(2004), both of which are incorporated herein by reference. ETD is a particularly useful tool for proteomics research, since it yields information complementary to that obtained by conventional dissociation techniques (e.g., collisionally induced dissociation), and also because ETD tends to generate product ions having intact post-translational modifications.
Implementation of ETD or other ion-ion experiments in a mass spectrometer requires two ion sources: a first ion source for generating analyte ions from a sample, and a second ion source for generating reagent ions. Typically, the analyte ion source utilizes an ionization technique, such as electrospray ionization, that operates at atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric or near-atmospheric pressure ionization techniques have also been employed or proposed for production of reagent ions (see, e.g., Wells et al. “‘Dueling’ ESI: Instrumentation to Study Ion/Ion Reactions of Electrospray-Generated Cations and Anions”, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrometry, vol. 13, pp. 614-622(2002), and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0245963 by Land et al. entitled “Method and Apparatus for Generation of Reagent Ions in a Mass Spectrometer”). However, it has been found that atmospheric-pressure ionization techniques may not be well-suited to production of certain labile ETD reagent ion species, which tend to be neutralized within the environment of an atmospheric-pressure ionization chamber via loss of electrons to background gas molecules or form ion species (unsuitable for ETD) through reaction with species present in the background gas.
Generation of reagent ions using a conventional chemical ionization (CI) technique has been disclosed in the prior art (see, e.g., the aforementioned Syka et al. paper as well as U.S. Pat. No. 7,456,397 by Hartmer et al.), and has been implemented in at least one commercially-available ion trap mass spectrometer. In such sources, reagent ions are formed by reaction of reagent vapor molecules with secondary electrons. CI sources typically employ an energized filament to produce a stream of electrons that preferentially ionizes secondary molecules. Reagent ions formed in the CI source may be directed through a dedicated set of ion optics, and introduced into a two-dimensional ion trap for reaction with analyte ions via an end of the trap opposite to the end through which the analyte ions are introduced, as described in Syka et al. Alternatively, analyte and reagent ions may be sequentially passed into a common aperture or end of an ion trap by an ion switching structure, as described in the Hartmer et al. patent.
Mass spectrometer configurations utilizing a CI reagent ion source have been utilized successfully for ETD experiments, but present a number of operational and design problems. The filaments in the CI source may fail in an unpredictable manner and need to be replaced frequently. Cleaning and maintenance of the CI source may require venting of the mass spectrometer and consequent downtime. Further, the need to provide dedicated guides or switching optics to direct ions from the CI source to the ion trap complicates instrument design and may interfere with the ability to incorporate additional components, e.g., other mass analyzers, into the ion path.
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