A NEW ULTRA-HIGH THROUGHPUT METHOD FOR CHARACTERIZING COMBINATORIAL LIBRARIES INCORPORATING A MULTIPLE PROBE AUTOSAMPLER COUPLED WITH FLOW-INJECTION MASS-SPECTROMETRY ANALYSIS

A new method for ultra-fast flow injection analysis-mass spectrometry (FIA-MS) has been developed. An eight probe autosampler system impleme nted for FIA-MS analysis of combinatorial libraries synthesized in mic rotiter plates has enabled sample analysis times to be dramatically re duced as compared to microtiter plate analyses using single arm autosa mplers. Compounds contained within the microtiter plate wells are proc essed eight at a time, eight samples in under a minute. Using this mul tiple probe autosampler, it has been possible to process a single micr otiter plate in 12 minutes. To facilitate the data acquisition and pro cessing of the samples, the sample data acquisition list, originally g enerated for registration of compounds synthesized in a microtiter pla te format, was modified using an Excel macro into the format of an inj ection sample list for mass spectral data acquisition. Further, an aut omated data processing script was developed to process the multi-injec tion analysis results. Applications of the probe multiple autosampler to the analysis of combinatorial libraries synthesized in microtiter p lates and compounds purified into deep well microtiter plates is prese nted. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.