Affordable, small footprint time-of-flight mass spectrometer offers many of the performance advantages of bigger and more expensive equipment for proteomics research
Bruker Daltonics has introduced the Autoflex Tof/Tof system, a compact high-performance Maldi-Tof/Tof mass spectrometer.
This first vertical Tof/Tof system, which offers many of the high-performance MS/MS characteristics of larger Tof/Tof systems, requires less lab space, and is priced attractively at US$375,000.
Since the introduction of Bruker Daltonics's Ultraflex Tof/Tof system two years ago, Maldi-Tof/Tof technology has been adopted very rapidly by the global proteomics community. Advantages of Maldi-Tof/Tof technology include superb MS/MS sensitivity, sequence coverage and information content due to the inherent high-energy MS/MS fragment generation.
At the same time, Tof/Tof tandem mass spectra can be acquired with unprecedented throughput and ease of use, and the results are straight-forward to interpret automatically.
The new Autoflex Tof/Tof, for the first time, provides the power of Maldi-Tof/Tof in a compact and affordable research system for proteomics applications.
The system enables extremely fast, automated protein identification by Maldi-Tof peptide mass fingerprinting, immediately followed by more detailed protein structural characterisation using Maldi-Tof/Tof tandem mass spectrometry.
The vertical Autoflex Tof/Tof can be seamlessly integrated into any protein research or biomarker discovery laboratory.
The Autoflex Tof/Tof benefits from Bruker Daltonics's Maldi sample targets which use the industry-standard microtitre plate (MTP) format, and are thus easily compatible with many standard microbiology or clinical diagnostics sample preparation robots.
An optional robotic arm is available for automated delivery of additional MTP Maldi targets into the autoflex Tof/Tof for unattended 24/7 operation.
The Autoflex Tof/Tof incorporates Bruker Daltonics's patented AnchorChip technology, which provides homogeneous, exactly-positioned samples on the Maldi target for robust and fast automation, as well as a sensitivity boost by up to two orders of magnitude.
The Autoflex Tof/Tof can be an integral module of either Bruker Daltonics's Proteineer solution for high-success expression proteomics, or the ClinProt solution for biomarker discovery and clinical proteomics.
