Comparison of two low flow interfaces for measurement of mobilities and stability constants by affinity capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry

Affinity capillary electrophoresis (ACE) is typically used for the determination of stability constant, Kst, of weak to moderately strong complexes. Sensitive detection such as mass spectrometry (MS) is required for extension of ACE methodology for estimation of Kst of stronger complexes. Consequently, an efficient interface for hyphenation of CE with MS detection is necessary. For evaluation of interfaces for electrospray ionization mass spectrometric (ESI/MS) detection in ACE conditions, potassium-crown ether complexation was used as model system. The effective mobilities of the crown ether ligands and the Kst of their potassium complexes were measured/determined by ACE-ESI/MS using two lab-made interfaces: (i) a sheathless porous tip CE-ESI/MS interface and (ii) a nano-sheath liquid flow CE-ESI/MS interface, and, in turn, compared with those obtained by ACE with UV spectrophotometric detection. Apparent stability constant of potassium-crown ether complexes in 60/40 (v/v) methanol/water mixed solvent, pH* 5.5, was about 1300 L/mol for dibenzo-18-crown-6, 1600 L/mol for benzo-18-crown-6 and 5200 L/mol for 18-crown-6 ligands, respectively. It was observed that electrophoretic mobilities from CE-MS experiments differ from reference values determined by UV detection by ∼7% depending on the CE-MS interface used. Good agreement of CE-MS and CE-UV data was achieved for nano-sheath liquid flow interface, in which the spray potential and the CE separation potential can be effectively decoupled. As for sheathless porous tip interface, a correction procedure involving a mobility marker has been proposed. It provides typically only ca. 1% difference of effective mobilities and Kst values obtained from CE-MS data as compared to those received by the reference ACE-UV method.