Micro-Array for Mass Spectrometry (MAMS)

• 8 lanes of 12x2 spots
• spot diameter: 100 μm
• spot depth: ~40 μm

Polysilazane-coated, transparent indium tin oxide target slide, microstructured by picosecond laser ablation with 8 x 2 lanes of 12 sample spots with a diameter of 400 μm and a depth of ~40 μm. Each lane has one reservoir of 1 mm diameter.

MAMS represent a type of substrate for MALDI-MS using a combination of hydrophilic reservoirs surrounded by an omniphobic surface for massively parallel, automated sample spotting. The MAMS chip featuring 8x2 lanes of 12 spots is designed for use in quantitative MALDI analysis (qMALDI). The analyte of interest can easily be distributed in MAMS by pulling droplet of analyte solution over the microarray surface with a glass slide or piece of plastic resulting in the generation of very reproducible nanoliter aliquots avoiding the need of a robotic microarray spotter.
The small aliquot reservoirs have been shown to result in a very homogenous crystallization of the matrix-analyte mixture, a prerequisite for using MALDI in a quantitative fashion. Moreover, this miniaturized sample target leads to virtually complete sample consumption upon laser irradiation, and only a few μL of analyte solution are needed for successful analysis.