LCMS-8060NX from Shimadzu

The LCMS-8060NX is the crowning achievement of Shimadzu’s triple quadrupole MS range, inheriting its excellent speed and world-class sensitivity from the LCMS-8060, while displaying improvements in robustness and ease-of-use. Considering recent advancements in workflow and increasing demand for cost reductions, key customer needs for LC/MS systems are expanding from sensitivity to robustness, operability, and efficiency. This instrument improves efficiency of the overall analysis workflow from analysis preparations to data processing, meeting customer needs through increased productivity.

Recent changes in the working style and increasing pressure to reduce costs, combined with a more diverse range of demands placed on LC-MS systems, require highly efficient systems that are capable of delivering high-sensitivity performance, yet are extremely robust and easy to operate. Therefore, we have developed a new proprietary ion source, the IonFocus unit (Patent No. JP6593548, US10546740), which efficiently introduces only ions into the mass spectrometer, while removing unwanted solvents. In addition, the LCMS-8060NX features new technology, such as the UF-Qarray II and UF-Lens II ion guides, which have been re-designed by making their shape and applied voltage more resistant to contamination, thus minimizing system downtime and improving user efficiency.

With growing demand in recent years for cost reductions and reimagined workflows, mass spectrometers are expected to offer not only high sensitivity but also excellent robustness and ease-of-use. The LCMS-8060NX offers higher efficiency over all workflow steps, from sample preparation to data analysis. With LCMS-8060NX, Shimadzu is offering greater operating efficiency to companies in the clinical field that handle complex biological samples. LCMS-8060NX offers among the highest sensitivity and detection speeds in the world, and includes internal mechanical improvements for promoting sample ionization. This enables high-sensitivity analysis even for compounds that are difficult to ionize. A new heat-assisted design of the ESI probe improves the desolvation efficiency and dramatically enhances the sensitivity for challenging molecules such as steroid hormones.

For any clinical lab, the downtime of the system is one of the most important factors. The LCMS-8060NX inherits all the ease-of-maintenance of its predecessors. The desolvation line (DL), which introduces the sample into the vacuum, and the ESI capillary can be replaced easily and in a short time. The DL can be replaced while maintaining the vacuum, minimizing downtime.

The routine clinical tests like vitamins, NBS, steroids, TDMs, amino acids, neurotransmitters, and many more speciality tests are analysed using LCMS-8060NX. Additionally, the study of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) or mucopolysaccharides, and enzymes involved in GAG metabolism is an important aspect of clinical research related to lysosomal storage. Quantitation of GAGs in bones, joints, the brain, heart, lungs, and other organs is a useful tool in this field of study. Such challenging analysis can easily be performed using LCMS-8060NX.

For future prospects, the multi-omics data generated using LCMS-8060NX can be analyzed by using multi-omics analysis package. It is possible to support not only analysis but also data processing, visualization, and interpretation. It contains the blank maps of metabolic pathways relevant to each method package that are needed for data mapping. Displaying the abundance chart of each metabolite on the metabolic pathway provides a bird’s eyeview to help observe metabolic changes and deduce biological implications. Now, quantitative results using the LC/MS/MS method package primary metabolites, lipid mediators, bile acids, and metabolites database can be visualized by enhancing the blank map. Moving forward, we plan to further expand the scope of visualization.

The LCMS-8060NX offers various analytical intelligence features that maximize analysis throughput, and improve the efficiency of the entire workflow from preparations for analysis through to data processing. For example, the system includes a new ionization unit that is capable of high-sensitivity analysis without the need for complicated adjustments and enables more efficient method development, as well as functions to automatically start up or shut down analytical instruments in combination with a Shimadzu Nexera LC system.