Bruker Presents New High Performance Mass Spectrometry Systems and Application for Biotherapeutic Analysis at ASMS

At the 58th ASMS Conference, Bruker unveiled a series of new products and application solutions targeted to improve the capabilities of researchers to develop biotherapeutics. As many biotherapeutics currently under development are protein or peptide based, Bruker has applied its extensive expertise in protein analysis to develop solutions for many common tasks in analyzing a protein or peptide based biotherapeutic including:

• Analysis of Truncations and Splice Variants
• Identification of Point Mutations
• Identification of Fusion Proteins
• Protein Glycoform Analysis
• Glycan Structure Identification
• PEGylation Analysis

At ASMS, Bruker will feature systems and applications built on the class leading Flex™ series of MALDI mass spectrometers for direct N- and C-terminal protein sequence analysis utilizing Bruker’s innovative top-down Edmass™ protein sequencing technology. This technique is often able to read dozens of amino acids from the important terminal residues of a protein, regardless of any protein modifications, and is superior in many aspects to traditional Edman sequencing. This application area is further enhanced by the launch of the new faster, highly efficient autoflex speed™ at ASMS designed to increase the productivity and capabilities of development operations.

In addition to the proven micrO-TOF™ and micrO-TOF-QII™ benchtop LCMS ESI-TOF systems, Bruker has applied its maXis™ UHR-TOF and amaZon ETD™ ion trap systems for the analysis of intact proteins and post translational modifications (PTMs). Several key technical presentations will highlight the powerful and unique capabilities of these systems to provide important information for the analysis of potential biotherapeutics. Utilization of the superior resolution (at least 40,000) and mass accuracy (<1 ppm) of the maXis allows for quick, detailed direct analysis of intact proteins of masses up to, and including, monoclonal antibodies. As a further enhancement to its capabilities, the maXis is the only high resolution, high performance MS system fully capable of integration with UHPLC without any comprise in performance. The amaZon ETD can use gentle Electron Transfer Dissociation (ETD) fragmentation methods to quickly and accurately identify and analyze PTMs from biotherapeutics. The amaZon ETD possesses superior sensitivity and speed and can give detailed information about the site of protein modification, and utilize MSn to generate detailed structural information about complex glycans. At ASMS, Bruker will also introduce a revolutionary large protein ETD capability for the maXis platform.

Dr. Clive Seymour, Executive Vice President at Bruker Daltonics, commented: “The combination of new products and extensive application of our mass spectrometry technologies to the analysis of biotherapeutics couldn’t have come at a better time. With the current emphasis in many pharmaceutical and biotech companies on the development of biotherapeutics, the need for better, more efficient tools to analyze these complicated molecules has become acute. We’ve utilized our extensive expertise in protein analytics to create some of the best, most innovative solutions for driving the development of a biotherapeutic in both discovery and development laboratories.”