While the present invention is illustrated, for example, with reference to the Module 350 being an application program in
Embodiments of the invention will be described further with respect to the non-limiting examples provided below.
Using a miniature CIT-based mass spectrometer, the feasibility of a fully miniaturized prototype CE-ESI-MS system was investigated, focusing on small biomolecules including amino acids, peptides and proteins. One application of a miniaturized CE-ESI-MS system for biomolecule analysis is monitoring of amino acids for process control of bioreactors used to produce biopharmaceuticals. Monitoring concentrations of amino acids can be used to optimize growth conditions and monitor cellular activity in a cell culture or bioreactor. Another application of this technology is the analysis of small peptides, which can be used for QA/QC of biopharmaceuticals, identification and characterization of proteins, or to gain greater insight into cellular functions. Thus, amino acids and peptides were chosen as target analytes.