The potential for elemental analysis in biotechnology

Abstract
The ICP-MS brings particular attributes to the method that distinguishes it from organic mass spectrometry: relative insensitivity to concomitant organic or metallic species, equivalent sensitivity to all similarly-tagged complexes, inherent ability to provide absolute quantitation and linearity of response. All these positive features fit the requirements of modern-day biotechnology. In this work, the potential of ICP-MS is discussed in the context of several urgent problems of biotechnology including: the determination of the state of phosphorylation of proteins, quality control of biologically active materials and control of efficiency of cell line transfections.