抄録
Quadrupolar and electromagnetic (FTICR) ion traps generated a strong attractive power for the biological MS community since they can be used in combination with the external sources ESI and MALDI. In general, ion traps are most interesting because of a capability which differentiates them from all other mass spectrometers: the storage of ions. Due to this fact, their powerful flexibility in performance is quite unique among all mass analyzers. Once the ions are stored, they can be manipulated in many different ways. Particularly multistage MS/MS experiments which require additional, spaceous analyzer hardware in other mass spectrometric techniques, can be performed subsequently in time by using exactly the same instrumental setup. While the quadrupolar ion trap mainly convinces by its ease of operation and the low cost at full MS/MS capabilities, FTICR instruments are truely unsurpassed in performance among all mass spectrometers in terms of resolution, mass accuracy and MSn capabilities. In this report, both techniques will be discussed with special regards to typical applications of biological and biochemical analysis which at the same time reveal capabilities and limitations of ion traps.
