Capillary isoelectric focusing-mass spectrometry for shotgun approach in proteomics

We report on capillary isoelectric focusing-mass spectrometry (CIEF-MS) of complex peptide mixtures in the absence of carrier ampholytes. Furthermore, the use of low concentrations of carrier ampholytes as mere spacers is investigated. Carrier ampholytes are complex mixtures of amphoteric compounds with high buffering capacity. Since all peptides are amphoteric compounds by themselves, the use of carrier ampholytes may be superfluous to establish a stable pH gradient in CIEF analysis of protein digests. Our research showed that when carrier ampholytes are omitted, the analyte ions are not focused at their isoelectric point. The analytes are charged, leading to electrophoretic mobility uncharacteristic for CIEF. The method was tested for a five-protein-mixture at 0.02 mg/mL per protein and 0.05 mg/mL per protein. At the lower concentration, the analytes were stacked during the focusing process in only a limited length of the capillary. Therefore, the higher concentration led to better separation efficiency. It was found that at low concentration (0.20%) the carrier ampholytes could work as spacers. Though it led to sensitivity losses of 15-45%, this was compensated by the higher separation efficiencies seen. The method was evaluated with an eight-protein-mixture, of which all could be identified after performing MS/MS.     

基于双边拟合的高稳定性共焦拉曼光谱定焦方法

共焦拉曼光谱技术可实现定量、无损、无需标记的样品微区“分子结构特征和物质组成信息”成像,被广泛应用于生物医学、物理化学以及材料科学等领域。由于共焦拉曼系统采用“点”激发和“点”探测的探测机制,且拉曼散射光谱信号微弱,导致成像所需时间可长达数小时甚至数十小时;测量过程中系统极易受环境变化、空气扰动等因素影响产生漂移,造成被测样品离焦,从而导致成像质量不稳定。针对现有共焦拉曼系统对样品定焦能力不足、样品易产生离焦误差、系统漂移大等问题,本文提出了一种基于双边拟合的高稳定性共焦拉曼光谱定焦方法。该方法首先对共焦拉曼光谱强度轴向响应曲线两侧对样品离焦敏感的数据区间分别进行线性拟合,得到两条拟合直线方程;然后,将所得的两条直线方程相减得到新的差分直线;最后,通过差分直线的过零点位置确定系统焦平面位置,实现了被测样品的高精度定焦,消除了离焦对系统测量结果的影响。以单晶硅表面同一位置,轴向扫描步距100 nm,进行60次重复定焦实验,实验获得的重复定焦极差为80.2 nm,说明系统具有良好的抗漂移能力。对周期5 μm的竖条栅格标准原子力台阶样品进行拉曼mapping成像测试,结果表明在长时间的成像过程中,和无定焦功能的图像相比,该方法获得的竖条栅格图像更清晰、边缘更锐利、信噪比较好。仿真分析和实验结果表明：提出的基于双边拟合共焦拉曼光谱探测方法可以提高系统的定焦准确度,抑制干扰因素导致的系统离焦对成像质量的影响,进而确保了系统探测的稳定性和成像分辨力,是一种自动定焦、抗漂移的拉曼光谱成像方法。     

Precise autofocusing microscope with rapid response

The rapid on-line or off-line automated vision inspection is a critical operation in the manufacturing fields. Accordingly, this present study designs and characterizes a novel precise optics-based autofocusing microscope with a rapid response and no reduction in the focusing accuracy. In contrast to conventional optics-based autofocusing microscopes with centroid method, the proposed microscope comprises a high-speed rotating optical diffuser in which the variation of the image centroid position is reduced and consequently the focusing response is improved. The proposed microscope is characterized and verified experimentally using a laboratory-built prototype. The experimental results show that compared to conventional optics-based autofocusing microscopes, the proposed microscope achieves a more rapid response with no reduction in the focusing accuracy. Consequently, the proposed microscope represents another solution for both existing and emerging industrial applications of automated vision inspection.     

A strong adaptable autofocusing approach of off-axis infrared digital holography under different quality conditions of holograms

In this paper, we present an innovative autofocusing criterion for the reconstruction of infrared digital holograms. This criterion has the advantages of fast, efficient and precision when determining the reconstruction distance of off-axis digital holography. This criterion is a mean-free high frequency calculation process. We focus on the problem of mean value drifting found in previous published methods and design our new approach to solve it. Unlike the previous methods perform well only with high quality holograms, our method is effective for both high and low quality holograms. Even when hologram is degraded by destructive interference, our method still performs well. This method helps to automatically determine the precise reconstruction distance, and we are sure that this technology can be applied in industrial applications in the future.     

Divergent-flow isoelectric focusing for separation and preparative analysis of peptides

A divergent-flow isoelectric focusing (DF IEF) technique has been applied for the separation and preparative analysis of peptides. The parameters of the developed DF IEF device such as dimension and shape of the separation bed, selection of nonwoven material of the channel, and separation conditions were optimized. The DF IEF device was tested by the separation of a peptide mixture originating from the tryptic digestion of BSA, cytochrome c, and myoglobin. The pH gradient of DF IEF was created by the autofocusing of tryptic peptides themselves without any addition of carrier ampholytes. The focusing process was monitored visually using colored pI markers, and the obtained fractions were analyzed by RP-HPLC and ESI/TOF-MS. DF IEF operating in the autofocusing mode provides an efficient preseparation of peptides, which is comparable with a commercially available MicroRotofor multicompartment electrolyzer and significantly improves sequence coverage of analyzed proteins. The potential of the DF IEF device as an efficient tool for the preparative scale separations was demonstrated by the isolation of caseinomacropeptide (CMP) from a crude whey solution.