Tags

Today, 30 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), have been approved for the treatment of certain cancers, autoimmune and infectious diseases. Even more are in development, and perhaps you and your team of scientists are working on one now.  Keeping pace with fast development timelines while performing comprehensive characterization of biologic candidates can be challenging. However, more and more, scientists are tackling these challenges with new techniques to speed and simplify their characterization workflows. Read more in the application note, “Rapid Characterization of Biologics using a CESI 8000 – SCIEX TripleTOF® System,” found in the Biologics Analytical Characterization Compendium, which highlights how CESI separation coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry can provide a comprehensive characterization of biotherapeutics.

Although the triple-stage quadrupole (QQQ) mass spectrometer remains the pillar for quantitative LC-MS/MS bioanalytical assays, due in part to the platforms’ high duty cycle when operated in multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode, the applicability of high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) has become of increasing importance for protein quantitation given the complexity of proteolytically digested samples in the surrogate peptide approach.  While the QQQ demonstrates high sensitivity and specificity, the relatively low-resolution measurement of m/z may fail to differentiate analyte response from nominally isobaric background interference.  In contrast, HRMS with accurate mass assignment of product ion allows interference to be resolved through judicious selection of a post-acquisition mass extraction window whose tolerance is largely dictated by the effective resolution and stability of mass calibration.