AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Applied Surface Science Wednesday Sessions
       Session AS+BI-WeA

Paper AS+BI-WeA8
Vacuum Ultraviolet Postionization for Mass Spectrometry of Small Molecule Analytes in Bacterial Biofilms

Wednesday, November 15, 2006, 4:20 pm, Room 2005

Session: Imaging and Characterization of Biological Materials
Presenter: P.D. Edirisinghe, University of Illinois at Chicago
Authors: L. Hanley, University of Illinois at Chicago
P.D. Edirisinghe, University of Illinois at Chicago
M. Zhou, University of Illinois at Chicago
K.A. Skinner-Nemec, Argonne National Laboratory
C.S. Giometti, Argonne National Laboratory
J.F. Moore, MassThink
J.E. Hunt, Argonne National Laboratory
W.F. Calaway, Argonne National Laboratory
M.J. Pellin, Argonne National Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Mass spectrometric analysis and imaging of intact microbial biofilms are difficult with established methods. A new experimental strategy is discussed for analyzing small molecule analytes within intact biofioms: laser desorption followed by postionization with 7.87 eV radiation of molecular analytes whose ionization potentials have been lowered by chemical derivatization with an aromatic tag.@footnote 1@,@footnote 2@ Postionization mass spectrometry with derivatization is developed on small peptides with aromatic or native tags such as a tryptophan residue. The new method is then applied to the detection of a quorum sensing peptide in a Bacillus subtilis bacterial biofilm. Finally, detection of an antibiotic is demonstrated by direct 7.87 eV postionization, without derivatization. These mass spectrometric methods show promise for the study of antibiotic resistance in microbial biofilms as well as other studies of small molecule analytes within complex biological matrices. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@P.D. Edirisinghe et al., Anal. Chem. 76 (2004) 4267.@footnote 2@L. Hanley et al., Appl. Surf. Sci. (2006), in press.