Monday, May 5, 2008

Mass spec help

Had an interesting conversation with Steve today about semantics when dealing with mass spectrometry. Here's a site that explains resolution vs. accuracy:

http://www.matrixscience.com/help/mass_accuracy_help.html

I believe resolution is depending on how wide the mass peak is; the narrower the peak, the less error there is because there is less isotopic distribution. Once the resolution has been tuned and the correct monoisotopic peak has been identified, then we can determine the accuracy of the mass measurement. The precision of the measurement is different from the accuracy, because if the wrong mass peak was chosen, then the mass value will be off by one or more Daltons. Accuracy is also limited by whether there are similar massed residues (such as isoleucines and leucines) that could not be differentiated just from mass data alone. That issue apparently needs to be addressed by tandem mass spec, which I've never done before.

I hope I explained that right.