Droplet electrocoupling between capillary electrophoresis and matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectroscopy and its application.

A droplet of an electroconductive solution was put on the sample plate of a matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectroscope (MALDI-TOF-MS) and the outlet terminal of a capillary Electrophoresis (CE) capillary was put into this droplet in order to make an electro-connection and to apply high voltage between the metallic sample plate and the counter pole of the CE. This procedure was simple and gave much more stable interfacing than that of the electrospray method. Furthermore, the separated component was collected and concentrated in a droplet. By mixing each separated sample spot with the MALDI matrix on the sample plate, the spots were analyzed in separated sequences to make three-dimensional mass chromatograms, or applied to the enzyme digestion analysis for peptide sequencing.