Xue Li, Lei Huang, Hui Zhu and Zhen Zhou.

RATIONALE: Direct mass spectrometry (MS)-based methods make it possible to monitor the molecular compositions of hundreds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled human breath in real time. Mass resolution and mass accuracy play important roles for direct MS analysis, especially for the low-concentration isobaric compounds in non-target research.

D. García-Gómez, T. Gaisl, L. Bregy, A. Cremonesi, P. M-L Sinues, M. Kohler, and R. Zenobi

Amino acids are frequently determined in clinical chemistry. However, current analysis methods are time-consuming, invasive, and require sample preparation. The authors hypothesized that plasma concentrations of amino acids can be estimated by measuring their concentrations in exhaled breath.

D. García-Gómez, T. Gaisl, L. Bregy, P. M-L Sinues, M. Kohler and R. Zenobi

Disorders in tryptophan metabolism result in diseases such as vitamin B6 responsive xanthurenic aciduria, hydroxy-kynureninuria, tryptophanuria and Hartnup disease. The authors hypotesized that breath analysis may reveal compounds that are metabolically linked to tryptophan. The mass range of detected metabolites reached up to 265 u, which is beyond the mass range limit (150–200 u) of competing breath research techniques such as PTR or SIFT-MS.

G. Trecate, P. M-L Sinues & R. Orlandi

Breast cancer screening and presurgical diagnosis are currently based on mammography, ultrasound and more sensitive imaging technologies; however, noninvasive biomarkers represent both a challenge and an opportunity for early detection of cancer …

M. T. Gaugg, D. Garcia Gomez, C. Barrios-Collado, G. Vidal-de-Miguel, M. Kohler, R. Zenobi and P. M-L Sinues

Coupling a SESI source and a HRMS (Orbitrap), the authors were able to identify exogenous compounds associated to smoking, as well as endogenous metabolites suggesting increased oxidative stress in smokers. According to the authors, most of these compounds correlated significantly with smoking frequency and allowed accurate discrimination of smokers and non-smokers.

D. Garcia-Gomez, T. Gaisl, C. Barrios-Collado, Guillermo Vidal-de-Miguel, M. Kohler and R. Zenobi

Chemical analysis of aerosols collected from electronic cigarettes (ECs) has shown that these devices produce vapors that contain harmful and potentially harmful compounds. Conventional analytical methods used for the analysis of electronic cigarettes do not reflect the actual composition of the aerosols generated because they usually neglect the changes in the chemical composition that occur during the aerosol generation process and after collection.

C. Barrios-Collado, D. Garcia-Gomez, R. Zenobi, G. Vidal-de-Miguel, Alfredo J. Ibanez, and P. M-L Sinues

The authors document how hundreds of species can be tracked with an unparalleled time resolution of 2 min during day−night cycles. To further illustrate the capabilities of SESI-MS for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) analysis, they subjected the plant to mechanical damage and monitored its response.