CMS Frequently Asked Questions

To submit a sample to the CMS, fill out a submission form. Fill out the form by providing as much information as you can. Attach your sample to the submission form and leave the sample with the submission form in the inbox in the room 1195 or 1145 of the ILSB. If you are sending samples from outside the university please contact us regarding proper procedures.

If you are on campus, samples can be dropped off in room 1195 in the ILSB building. If you are submitting a sample outside Texas A&M University, please contact us and use the express shipping address provided to send your samples.

We accept samples from other universities, government or private institutions. However, we give priority to samples submitted from within TAMU research community. See fee structure for samples submitted from other institutions.

If you are submitting samples for the first time, please fill out customer information form and return to us by contact us or fax. Once you open an account with us, you can use a PO number to subsequently use the facility. For details please contact us.

Room 1195
Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building
301 Old Main Dr.

Samples can be submitted in solid, liquid, and or in solution form.

The amount of sample needed depends on the mass spectrometry technique used. In general 1 mg/ml of sample in solution or 1 mg in solid form is enough for all applications. If you have a limited quantity of sample, please contact CMS service staff.

Solvents such as water, methanol, acetonitrile, chloroform, tetrahydrofuran, and dichloromethane are generally accepted for MS analysis. If you are submitting a sample in solution, on the submission form you should indicate the solvent that your sample is dissolved in and the solvent in which your sample is soluble.

Samples can also be submitted in buffers for electrospray (ESI) or MALDI analysis if they are in one of the following MS compatible buffers: ammonium acetate, ammonium formate, ammonium hydrogencarbonate at concentration 10 mM or less. Acid additives: acetic, formic acid trifluoracetic (TFA) acids are acceptable.

ESI: Direct Infusion

Sample concentration and amount
We need at least 100 microliters of solution at a concentration of 50 to 100 micromolar in a suitable ESI solvent to run the sample.
Solvent
Suitable solvents for ESI include methanol, acetonitrile, and mixtures of water and acteonirtile or methanol. Samples are accepted in pure water, tetrahydrofuran and dichloromethane, however cannot be run directly from these solvents.

MALDI

Sample concentration and amount
For MALDI, amount of sample will depend on mass. For masses between 500 and 2000, 0.1 mg may be sufficient for pure solid, liquid, or oil samples. For higher masses, higher amounts of sample may be needed, depending on the mass, purity, and type of sample. Solutions should be at least 100 μM concentration, and we need at least 5 microliters of solution in most cases.
Solvent
Suitable solvents include water, methanol, dichloromethane, acetonitrile, and others.

Light sensitive
Samples that are sensitive to light can be placed in a vial covered by aluminum foil.
Low temperature storage
If a sample needs to be kept at low temperatures (refrigeration or freezing), please find a CMS staff member or, place it in one of the trays on the refrigerator or freezer and write down your sample ID on the sample vial and write down the location of your sample tray number (1, 2, or 3) and row (A, B, C, etc.) on the sample submission form.
Air sensitive
Samples that are air sensitive or decompose quickly need special attention. Please contact us in advance to make arrangements before submitting the sample.
Acid/base sensitive
Some samples can degrade if an acid or base is added to the sample. If you are submitting a sample that is sensitive to acid to base, please indicate so.

Please provide us with a chemical structure and formula of your analyte. The structure helps us to determine the ionization method and interpret data. For protein work on knowns, please email us the single amino acid sequence.

Unit Mass
In unit mass or nominal, the mass is generally accurate to within few tenth of a Da. Mass spectrometers that are labeled as low resolution normally provide unit mass. All our EI, CI and APCI ionization techniques are low resolution and provide only unit mass. We provide unit mass for all samples submitted unless exact mass is requested.
Accurate Mass
In exact or accurate mass measurement, mass is accurately determined to four decimal places using a high resolution mass spectrometer that is calibrated internally or externally. Typically, mass accuracy below 5 ppm is provided. In order to request for this service, unit mass should be determined first. Accurate mass is only provided for samples submitted for ESI and/or MALDI analysis.

Typically we provide data within 24 hours of sample submission. ESI samples are run frequently throughout the day and results are available within the same day, normally less than 4 hours. Unless otherwise noticed, we run MALDI samples every day at 4:00 PM. and results are available after 5:00 PM of the same day.

You can pick your analysis result from room 41 Chemistry. We normally print results and attach to the sample submission form, unless an electronic copy is requested.

We provide text file of the MS data for all researchers upon request. We can only provide power point presentation of the MS analysis results for researchers who are located outside chemistry building if requested. We don't provide power point presentation for researchers located in chemistry building.

Data will be stored within CMS for only two years. It is your responsibility to obtain a copy of your data within the time frame.

Research carried out in part or in full using CMS services with services and/or contributions requires acknowledgements of facility, facility and staff, or co-authorship and acknowledgment of facility. Details are given in the acknowledgment policy.

If you are writing a manuscript and you are going to include data obtained from CMS, please contact us we will provide experimental details.

If you publish a paper that includes data obtained by CMS, it is mandatory that you send us citation of the publication or a PDF file once your work is published on the web.