High throughput identification of components from traditional Chinese medicine herbs by utilizing graphene or graphene oxide as MALDI-TOF-MS matrix.

In this work, graphene or graphene oxide was utilized, for the first time, to identify small molecular components from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) herbs, by acting as matrix of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Due to the large surface area of graphene or graphene oxide, the analytes were trapped tightly to the matrix, which avoids the contamination of the ion source and vacuum system. Besides, their excellent electronic, thermal and mechanical properties make them desired matrices for MALDI-TOF-MS. Stable analysis was achieved with no background inference even at the concentration of 100 nM. Moreover, the limit of detection (LOD) could be greatly lowered by utilizing graphene or graphene oxide as a pre-enrichment adsorbent. In summary, the promoted MALDI-TOF-MS methodology was demonstrated to be simple, sensitive, fast, cost effective and, most importantly, high throughput.