Video Transcripts

About The Shimadzu Center For Bio-Molecular Imaging

The Shimadzu Center for Bio-Molecular Imaging provides instrumentation focused on the identification of molecular signatures such as: protein and lipid detection, microorganism identification, biomarker discovery, and advanced MALDI imaging. The center offers five matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometers, as well as a high resolution MALDI imaging system and a protein sequencer.

The Center for Bio-Molecular Imaging (BMI) is an open access facility that houses six matrix-assisted, laser desorption and ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometers (MALD-TOF) as well as supporting periphery including a stand-alone HPLC that can be coupled to a fully-automated MALDI plate spotting robot for complex sample separation and analysis. The BMI is a fee-for-service facility that accepts sample submission or offers user training for researchers who wish to learn and use the instruments themselves.

In addition to our standard linear (5 kDa and up) and reflectron (high resolution, 5 kDa and under) MALDI TOF instruments, the BMI houses several unique MALDI applications: a customizable micro-organism identification database (Axima ID-Plus), an high mass detector for linear TOF, and an ultrafast MALDI imaging platform (MALDI 7090). Micro-organism ID is based on MALDI-generated spectra from a direct smear of the organism of interest and offers a rapid, robust, and inexpensive method for microorganism analysis. The CovalX high mass detector is specialized for detecting molecules 300 kDa up to 1.5 MDa. MALDI imaging with a 2 kHz laser at high mass resolution allows for the visualization of chemical distributions directly from a wide variety of thinly sliced samples over a user-specified mass range. A vacuum-controlled matrix deposition system ensures submicron matrix crystals for the highest achievable spatial resolution.

Primary fields of interest are protein and peptide sequencing and characterization, post-translational modification analysis, proteomics, lipidomics, mass spectrometric imaging, and microorganism identification.

Omics-related Research

Proteomics
Lipidomics
Metabolomics

Microorganism Identification

Bacterial strain-specific protein profiling
Bacterial metabolite profiling
Custom bacteria/fungi/microorganism profiling

Biomolecule Analysis

Peptide sequencing
Lipid isolation and fragmentation
Protein PTM analysis
Plasma and serum protein profiling

Our Instrumentation

Matrix-assisted Laser Desorption and Ionization (MALDI)

MALDI-TOF mass spectrometers are incredibly versatile instruments, generally geared toward fast, non-quantitative analysis, although with the proper sample preparation, relative quantitation can be achieved. There are two common modes of analysis that can be performed in either positive or negative ion mode: Linear mode offers a broad mass range with standard resolution and is ideal for large molecules. Reflectron mode offers high mass resolution (up to 20000) in a smaller mass range (up to approximately 5 kDa). Both modes offer some forms of fragmention: post-source decay in linear and reflectron modes and a dedicated CID collision cell for reflectron mode on select instruments.