Trapped ion mobility spectrometry: A short review

• Published in: International journal of mass spectrometry 2018-02, Vol.425, p.22-35
• Main Authors: Ridgeway, Mark E., Lubeck, Markus, Jordens, Jan, Mann, Mattias, Park, Melvin A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Gated-TIMS; High resolution; Ion funnel; Parallel accumulation serial fragmentation; Parallel acuumlation; PASEF; Selective accumlation; TIMS; Trapped ion mobility
• ISSN: 1387-3806; 1873-2798
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijms.2018.01.006

[Display omitted] •TIMS is an ion funnel based analyzer design which blends small size, high resolving power, and high sensitivity.•TIMS operates on the same principles as much larger traditional drift tube ion mobility analyzers.•The flexibility of TIMS lends itself to a number of applications and hardware designs.•TIMS flexibility allows for the effective hybridization of TIMS with TOF and FT-ICR mass analyzers. Trapped ion mobility spectrometry (TIMS) hybridized with mass spectrometry (MS) is a relatively recent advance in the field of ion mobility mass spectrometry (IMMS). The basic idea behind TIMS is the reversal of the classic drift cell analyzer. Rather than driving ions through a stationary gas, as in a drift cell, TIMS holds the ions stationary in a moving column of gas. This has the immediate advantage that the physical dimension of the analyzer can be small (∼5 cm) whereas the analytical column of gas – the column that flows past during the course of an analysis – can be large (as much as 10 m) and user defined. In the years since the first publication, TIMS has proven to be a highly versatile alternative to drift tube ion mobility achieving high resolving power (R ∼ 300), duty cycle (100%), and efficiency (∼80%). In addition to its basic performance specifications, the flexibility of TIMS allows it to be adapted to a variety of applications. This is highlighted particularly by the PASEF (parallel accumulation serial fragmentation) workflow, which adapts TIMS-MS to the shotgun proteomics application. In this brief review, the general operating principles, theory, and a number of TIMS-MS applications are summarized.