Fig. 1.

A, AIM acquisition enables detection of 2–5 yoctomoles/ms of target peptides serially diluted in neat solvent, and seven order of magnitude of linear dynamic range. The MS intensity within 10 ppm from the theoretical m/z was recorded for peptide NSPGLLVSPGNLNK (m/z 709.3981) with maximum injection time (max IT) 25 (red), 250 (black), and 2500 (gray) ms (n = 7, error bars represent standard deviation of independent experiments). Noise levels recorded at baseline level (i.e. with no target peptide infused) is displayed for each maximum injection times as continuous line. Overlapping data points were horizontally offset when needed for clarity. B, Ion accumulation times obtained for each target peptide with maximum injection time set at 5s. Ion injection time in the baseline samples (i.e. with no target present) is denoted as “B.” Comparison of spectra recorded with target flow 10e7 (C) and 100 ymol/ms (D) reveals that target accumulation is practically limited by coisolated contaminant ions (ion intensity on absolute linear scale).