Practical courses in FTICR Mass Spectrometry Imaging and FTICR MS for Cultural Heritage Science, Monday November 21th to Saturday November 26th

The EU_FT-ICR_MS Horizon 2020 infrastructure organizes from Monday November 21th to Saturday November 26th in Liege (Belgium) and Lille (France) two FTICR Mass Spectrometry Short courses focused on Imaging  and analysis of Cultural Heritage artefacts.

The Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) short course include a few of theoretical aspects of mass spectrometry imaging, especially matrix assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry imaging, MALDI MSI, and a quick overview of other MSI techniques, instrumentation, and applications.

The practical sections of the training include tissue section of mouse brains, preparation of thin layer chromatography (TLC) of lipids, and handling of bacterial co-cultures chemically interacting in agar. The short course also includes the matrix deposition using an automated sprayer (SunChrom SunCollect), and the MALDI MSI of the various samples using the Bruker dual source ESI/MALDI FT-ICR 9,4T fitted with the Paracell, the solariX xR. Finally, a short introduction about the use of Python for data sciences is scheduled, exploring and extracting some data of interest from mass spectrometry mzML converted data. A short demo will show what could be expected when applying such tools within an in-house software [1], allowing the reconstruction of MSI data using a Kendrick Mass Defect clustering strategy. Additionally, the basic use of SCiLS™ Lab software (Bruker) [2] for processing MSI data will be tackled during the short courses.

The short course on Cultural Heritage will begin with brief theoretical courses  covering an overview of Mass Spectrometry applied to Cultural Heritage, the principle of Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry (FT-ICR MS), the concept of fine isotopic structure as well as the basis of proteomics, glycomics and lipidomics.

The practical sections of the training comprise examples from these various topics. Firstly, demonstration of sample preparation will be held: (i) collagen extraction and digestion with minimal induction of posttranslational modifications, quantification of deamidation; (ii) digestion of model gums, watercolor or gouache modern paint and (iii) and depolymerization of alkyd artist paint. Subsequently, the prepared samples will be analyzed with high resolution MALDI FT-ICR and nanoLC Orbitrap results. The obtained spectra will be further compared to their corresponding ones acquired through lower resolution instruments such as MALDI TOF MS And finally, for proteomics, a comparison related to data treatment will show different outcomes from the same spectra depending on the database sources, with publicly available and in-house established data bases.

Travel, accommodation and meals for European participants are taken in charge by the EU (EU_FT-ICR_MS network, Grant Agreement 73107).

More informations here.

Registration form.