An Overview of Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy Instrumentation

Abstract

Author(s): Subramani Parasuraman, Anish R, Subramani Balamurugan, Selvadurai Muralidharan, Kalaimani Jayaraj Kumar, and Venugopal Vijayan

Chromatography is a separation technique used to separate the individual compound from a mixture using a stationary and mobile phase. Discovery of chromatography is a millstone event in biomedical research. Chromatographic separation is based on the principles of adsorption, partition, ion exchange, molecular exclusion, affinity and Chirality. There are many types of chromatography available for quantitative and qualitative analysis of pharmaceutical agents, which includes Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS). Combination of chromatography with spectrometry is first reported in 1967 and first LC-MS system was introduced in 1980s. LC-MS is an analytical chemistry technique that combines the physical separation capabilities of liquid chromatography with the mass analysis and mass spectrometry. Mainly the LC-MS contains liquid chromatography assembly, ion generation unit/ ionization source, mass analyzer and mass spectrometric data acquisition. LC-MS is most commonly used in biomedical sciences for pharmacokinetic analysis, genetic analysis, structural elucidation, etc. The main objective of this review is to overview the principle, instrumentation and application of LC-MS.