A mass chromatogram is a representation of mass spectrometry data as a chromatogram, where the x-axis represents time and the y-axis represents signal intensity. The source data contains mass information; however, it is not graphically represented in a mass chromatogram in favor of visualizing signal intensity versus time. The most common use of this data representation is when mass spectrometry is used in conjunction with some form of chromatography, such as in liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry or gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. In this case, the x-axis represents retention time, analogous to any other chromatogram. The y-axis represents signal intensity or relative signal intensity. There are many different types of metrics that this intensity may represent, depending on what information is extracted from each mass spectrum.
Read more about Mass Chromatogram: Total Ion Current (TIC) Chromatogram, Base Peak Chromatogram, Extracted Ion Chromatogram (XIC), Selected Ion Monitoring Chromatogram, Selected Reaction Monitoring Chromatogram
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