Mass Spectrometer for Microbial Natural Products Discovery

1. We will purchase and install a Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 240 benchtop mass spectrometer, coupled to the Vanquish Horizon Ultra High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (UHPLC) System. This flexible system provides remarkable mass resolution of up to 240,000 at m/z of 200 at a 1.5 Hz scan rate by combining a quadrupole, an ion routing multipole and an Orbitrap analyzer for high resolution accurate mass (HRAM) analysis, with and without fragmentation.2. The new USDA-funded instrument will facilitate difficult fractionation, mass spec protocol optimizations, data collection and structure determination for small molecule natural products. This access will accelerate research for groups who currently do not have access to such a resource and will provide innovative new directions for microbiology research programs at UW-Madison who are not yet involved in natural product structure determinations.