Strategies for Rapid Intact Mass Screening Analysis: Achieving One-Second per Well

January 27, 2026

With emerging high-speed mass spectrometry (HT-MS) platforms the sample-to-report bottlenecks have shifted beyond acquisition. This is especially true for intact mass analysis, which requires deconvolution, peak detection, quantification, and hit calling steps. This study explores the major factors that affect analysis speed across various protein sizes on a fully integrated and automated SCIEX Echo^® MS+ system. Maximum analysis speed depends on assay requirements. In large screening assays, lower mass accuracy demands can trade off for faster analysis. Protein size also influences whether isotopic resolution is obtained, impacting analysis strategy and speed. We profiled pre-processing, deconvolution, and hardware to identify key considerations for optimizing analysis speed of the end-to-end process.