Bruker TimsTOF FleX, IntelliSlides, SCiLS Lab 2020

Bruker announced several new mass spectrometry products and workflows to be launched at the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference, held June 2-6 in Atlanta.

First, the company introduced the TimsTOF FleX mass spectrometer, which includes a software-switchable MALDI source adapted to the ESI TimsTOF Pro platform. This new combined ESI/MALDI capability enables spatially resolved omics, which the company calls SpatialOMx, on a single instrument. TimsTOF FleX comes with Bruker's prorietary 10-kHz SmartBeam 3D laser with true pixel fidelity for rapid, label-free MALDI imaging at high spatial resolution while preserving the 4D proteomics and phenomics sensitivity of the TimsTOF Pro in ESI mode. The approach enables researchers to gain insights into spatial molecular distributions in tissues from MALDI imaging, and to guide 4D omics molecular expression studies, for example on proteins, low-level cancer antigen peptides, lipids, glycans, metabolites, or xenobiotics, which cannot be observed by traditional staining or labelling techniques, the company said.

Bruker also launched IntelliSlides specifically designed to automate TimsTOF FleX workflows. The IntelliSlides come pre-inscribed with software-readable 'teach marks' on the conductive surface to indicate where to place the tissue sample, a bar code and tracking number. The company also released SCiLS Lab 2020 MALDI imaging software, now integrated with MetaboScape5.0 to provide automated annotations of lipids and metabolites in tissue molecular images in SpatialOMx.