Metabolomics allows researchers to

interrogate thousands of potential

biomarkers simultaneously, without a

priori knowledge of the underlying biology

or pathophysiology. Due to the complexity

of the samples, people need outstanding

mass resolution, mass accuracy, and

sensitivity as well as sophisticated data

analysis software. Agilent 6545 Q

-

TOF

LC/MS system and Agilent MassHunter

software are the

perfect combination to

fulfill the requirements.

In this application, serum extracts from

healthy subjects and

samples

with chronic

kidney disease (CKD) at stage 3 and

stage 5 are analyzed with 6545 LC/Q

-

TOF

and 1290 Infinity LC system. The mass

s

pectrometer is tuned using the novel

Swarm Autotune for optimal performance

in the m/z range of the metabolites.

Data was acquired in both positive and

negative ionization modes with reference

mass correction. The typical metabolomics

workflow is ill

ustrated here.

Big sensitivity gains improve results

The improved sensitivity of the 6545

Q

-

TOF LC/MS enables us to extract

5,817 features as opposed to 2,102

features on the previous generation of

Q

-

TOF under the same column load in

positive ionization mode. Even with a

five

-

fold reduction of column load, we

are still able to extract 2,489 features.