Sample treatments prior to capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry

Sample preparation is a crucial part of chemical analysis and in most cases can become the bottleneck of the whole analytical process. Its adequacy is a key factor in determining the success of the analysis and, therefore, careful selection and optimization of the parameters controlling sample treatment should be carried out. This work revises the different strategies that have been developed for sample preparation prior to capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS). Namely, the present work presents an exhaustive and critical revision of the different samples treatments used together with on-line CE-MS including works published from January 2000 to July 2006Authors are grateful to the AGL2005-05320-C02-01 Project (Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia) and the ALIBIRD-S-505/AGR-0153 Project (CAM) for financial support of this work.Peer reviewe