Bruker timsTOF fleX MALDI-2 for Biomedical Research at The Ohio State University - Abstract A group of 15 investigators from 5 colleges/institutes and 12 departments at The Ohio State University and 1 investigator from Case Western Reserve University is requesting funds to permanently acquire a Bruker timsTOF fleX MALDI-2 quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer. This instrument was originally brought to the Ohio State campus with a one-year, no obligation loan and has already resulted in thirteen publications from users. This instrument empowers NIH-funded users in their tissue imaging studies with three new and needed capabilities: 1) MALDI-2 post-ionization; 2) single-cell spatial resolution; and 3) trapped ion mobility (TIMS) coupled with imaging. These three features are in high demand amongst NIH-funded OSU investigators and no other instrument of this type is available on campus or within Ohio. While there are other imaging instruments on campus, the balance of m/z resolution (at 60,000), scanning speed, imaging speed, and imaging resolution makes the timsTOF fleX MALDI-2 a crucial, research-changing piece of technology for the growing number of interested users at OSU. The instrument provides rapid detection and structural elucidation of a tissue landscape in a non-targeted fashion with the capability of high-throughput MS and MSMS scanning with the use of TIMS before quadrupole mass selection. The added feature of post-ionization with MALDI-2 increases signal intensity for many small molecule metabolites (i.e., glycans, fatty acids, amino acids, and drug-metabolites). Likewise, the diameter of the MALDI laser spot, needed for creating the pixelation of a tissue image, can be adjusted as low as 5 µm, making the imaging spatial resolution the finest on the market and capable of imaging within a single cell. Finally, the instrument can be readily switched between positive and negative modes and has a high m/z dynamic range without the need for labeling, so researchers can overlap different molecular types to acquire imaging overlays of protein and lipids or protein and drug metabolite interactions. This flexibility is critically needed as the research programs of the 10 major users and the 6 minor users that will benefit from this instrument are highly diverse, span two universities, and are funded by 16 NIH grants (spanning 5 NIH institutes: NCI, NIGMS, NHLBI, NIA, NIBIB) as well as the NSF and the USDA. The requested instrument will be housed in the OSU Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Facility (MS&P) within the Campus Chemical Instrument Center (CCIC), a unit of the OSU Office of Research that provides mass spectrometry access campus wide. Already known for consistent research-driven instrumentation for LC-based proteomics and metabolomics, the CCIC MS&P core is looking to provide the highest quality state-of-the-art instrumentation in imaging mass spectrometry to match and facilitate both the omics already performed in the facility as well as the microscopy research performed by NIH-funded researchers. The CCIC MS&P staff have the expertise and experience to support the timsTOF fleX MALDI-2 and offer these services to a wide range of biomedical researchers at OSU and throughout Ohio.
