A METHOD OF SCREENING A SAMPLE FOR THE PRESENCE OF ONE OR MORE KNOWN COMPOUNDS OF INTEREST AND A MASS SPECTROMETER PERFORMING THIS METHOD

摘要

A method of screening a sample for the presence of one or more known compounds of interest is disclosed. A fragmentation device is repeatedly switched between a fragmentation mode of operation and a non-fragmentation mode of operation. A determination is made whether a candidate parent ion of interest (M1 ) is present in a non- fragmentation data set and whether one or more corresponding fragment ions of interest (M2, M3, M4...) are present in a fragmentation data set. A further determination is made to check if the candidate parent ion of interest (M1 ) and the one or more corresponding fragment ions of interest (M2, M3, M4...) have substantially similar elution or retention times and/or ion mobility drift times.