Facility Details

The Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Core Facility supports research at Penn State and beyond with expertise in the proteomics, chemical synthesis product, polymer, and biomolecule analyses and provides access to the state-of-the-art mass spectrometry instrumentation.

Small molecule characterizations are performed on a Thermo Q Exactive Orbitrap mass spectrometer with optional heated electrospray ionization probe or atmospheric pressure chemical ionization probe. Thus, we can analyze molecules with a variety of functional groups. The Q Exactive orbitrap is interfaced with a Thermo Vanquish Flex liquid chromatography system for qualitative and quantitative analyses of mixtures. We offer several chromatography column chemistries: reverse-phase C18, C8, and C4; normal phase HILIC; and size-exclusion. When working with our customers on large projects, we provide full support from method development to data acquisition, analyzing, and reporting to manuscript preparation.

Proteomics analyses are performed on a Thermo Orbitrap Eclipse, a so-called Tribrid mass spectrometer with a quadrupole mass filter, and two mass analyzers: a linear ion trap and an Orbitrap. The instrument is capable of several ion fragmentation methods: collision-induced dissociation (CID); higher-energy collisional dissociation (HCD); electron-transfer higher-energy collision dissociation (EThcD); electron-transfer collision-induced dissociation (ETciD); and ultraviolet photodissociation (UVPD). These ion activation techniques are available at any stage of MSn with detection in the Orbitrap mass analyzer or in the linear ion trap analyzer. We offer full proteome characterization and quantitation (label-free and tandem-mass-tag-based up to TMT 18Plex), post-translational modification analyses, pull-downs and other subproteome analyses, crosslinking and proximity labeling analyses of protein-protein interactions. The instrument is interfaced with a Thermo Vanquish Neo nano-flow liquid chromatography system. We assist users with all stages of sample preparation, data processing and analysis, as well as manuscript preparation. The Core Facility users have access to the Thermo Proteome Discoverer 2.5 and Bioinformatics Solutions PEAKS software.

Polymer MW analyses are performed on a Bruker Ultraflextreme MALDI TOF-TOF mass spectrometer. The PolyTools software is available to the Penn State researchers for analyzing the polymer mass spectra.
The MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer is also used for library-based microorganism identification technology, Bruker MALDI Biotyper. Our library contains more than 7000 entries; a new library entry creation is also supported.

Intact protein molecular weight determinations are carried out on either the Thermo Q Exactive Orbitrap or the Bruker Ultraflextreme MALDI TOF-TOF.