Special Issues-03-01-2020

Click the title above to open the Current Trends In Mass Spectrometry March 2020 special issue in an interactive PDF format.

Analysis of the compositional variation in living cells is essential for understanding biological processes. Single-cell elemental analysis by triple-quadrupole ICP-MS is emerging as a selective, highly sensitive, and potentially high-throughput technique for the study of constitutive elements, and uptake of metallodrugs (or metal-containing nanomaterials) in single cells.

The presence of per- and polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS) in water is an important health and environmental concern. Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) has been established as the most suitable technology for monitoring these substances. A method is described, using EPA 8327, for PFAS analysis in groundwater, surface water, and wastewater.

Drug discovery using high-throughput screening of discreet compounds, and the discovery of natural products with pharmacological mechanisms of action, rely on bioassay-guided fractionation analysis. Recent applications of affinity selection–mass spectrometry (AS-MS) are useful for exploring the discovery of ligands to membrane-bound proteins and RNA targets.

Food quality differences are dependent on botanical and geographical origins of primary food ingredients as well as storage and handling. Quality assessment for food materials, including cocoa and olive oil, is demonstrated by applying two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC) combined with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) and pattern recognition.