ABI/MDS Sciex Introduces QSTAR® Elite LC/MS/MS System

Applied Biosystems Group, an Applera Corporation business, together with its joint venture partner MDS Sciex, a division of MDS Inc. has introduced the QSTAR^® Elite LC/MS/MS System, a quadrupole time-of-flight (QqTOF) mass spectrometer designed for proteomics and metabolomics researchers discovering protein and small molecule biomarkers from complex biological samples.

The QSTAR^® Elite LC/MS/MS System is designed to provide improved sensitivity and speed of acquisition as well as resolution, dynamic range, and mass measurement accuracy, over previous technology for greater depth of analyte coverage and confident identification of potential biomarkers.

"This next-generation QSTAR system combines higher instrument performance with intelligent data acquisition and processing to enable fast, conclusive compound identification," said Laura Lauman, Division President, Proteomics and Small Molecule Division, Applied Biosystems.

"The new QSTAR^® Elite System has been configured with the recently introduced Tempo™ LC and Analyst^® QS 2.0 Software to increase performance and improve productivity from sample injection through data acquisition."

Andy Boorn, President of MDS Sciex said, "The QSTAR Elite System takes advantage of the new Razor™ Detector for improved sensitivity and resolution, LINAC^® II collision cell and additional hardware changes for improvements in acquisition speed, ion transmission, and robustness."

"Coupled with the latest software, this system delivers greater productivity for metabolite and protein biomarker discovery."

ABI Claims that, Analyst^® QS 2.0 software incorporates enhanced stability for instrument control and data acquisition with functionality for intelligent precursor ion selection in MS/MS, including proprietary Dynamic Background Subtraction capabilities and Mass Defect Triggered IDA.

Analyst^® QS 2.0 also contains tools for 21CFR11 compliance and includes applications-specific software that automates high-throughput workflows for protein and metabolite discovery.

ProteinPilot™ Software option for protein identification and expression analysis supports iTRAQ™ and SILAC™ reagent workflows.

It incorporates the Paragon™ search algorithm and Mascot^® search engine in a single package that substantially increases the speed of database searches, along with advanced tools for data analysis and visualization.

In addition, MarkerView™ 1.1 Software option facilitates metabolomic and proteomic biomarker workflows by aligning data across multiple samples and performing statistical analyses to find distinctive compounds that may be new biomarkers.

The QSTAR^® Elite instrument can be configured with the Tempo™ LC system line, combining high precision liquid chromatography.

QSTAR^® Elite LC/MS/MS Systems are expected to be available for shipment in February 2006.