Performance characteristics of a new hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometer (TripleTOF 5600).

The TripleTOF 5600 System, a hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer, was evaluated to explore the key figures of merit in generating peptide and protein identifications that included spectral acquisition rates, data quality, proteome coverage, and biological depth. Employing a Saccharomyces cerevisiae tryptic digest, careful consideration of several performance features demonstrated that the speed of the TripleTOF contributed most to the resultant data. The TripleTOF system was operated with 8, 20, and 50 MS/MS events in an effort to compare with other MS technologies and to demonstrate the abilities of the instrument platform.