UV-absorbing Ligand Capped Gold Nanoparticles for the SALDI-MS Analysis of Small Molecules

Abstract

We report that modifying the surface of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) with 2-mercaptopyridine-3-carboxylic acid (MPyCA) enhances surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization(SALDI) performance in the analysis of small molecules. The MPyCA ligand has a strong UV absorbance at the wavelengths of the typical MALDI laser at 337 nm, resulting in efficient thermal/energy transfer from the AuNPs to analytes during pulse-laser irradiation. In addition, the MPyCA ligand contains carboxylic acid and pyridine groups, providing affinity to various analytes through acid-base interactions. Irganox1010, glucose and meropenem were utilized as model analytes to evaluate SALDI performance because these molecules are generally ionized with difficulty by conventional MALDI-MS. Our results demonstrate that the MPyCA-Au NP based SALDI-MS could detect Irganox1010, glucose and meropenem with stronger ion peaks for these molecules compared to MALDI-MS using CHCA. The limit of detection (LOD) for meropenem was much lower in the case of SALDI ( LOD = 1 ng /mL) compared to MALDI ( LOD = 10 μg /mL).