Gold coating of non‐conductive membranes before matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization tandem mass spectrometric analysis prevents charging effect

Abstract
Acquisition of tandem mass spectra from peptides or other analytes deposited on non‐conductive membranes is inhibited on instruments combining matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization with tandem time‐of‐flight analyzers (MALDI‐TOF/TOF™) due to a charging effect. A thin layer of gold renders the membrane conductive. This allows adequate data acquisition on MALDI‐TOF/TOF™ systems. Therefore, this methodology extends the capacity of the molecular scanner concept to tandem mass spectrometry. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.