Abstract
Despite all of the prophecies of doom, gel electrophoresis is still prevalent in modern proteomic workflows. However, the currently used protein staining methods represent a serious bottleneck for a quick subsequent protein analysis using mass spectrometry. Substituting traditional protein stains by pre-gel derivatization with visible and mass spectrometry compatible reagents eliminates several processing steps and drastically reduces the sample preparation time. A defined chemistry permits seamless integration of such covalent protein staining methods into standardized bioinformatic pipelines. Using Uniblue A we could covalently stain simple to complex protein samples within 1 minute. Protein profiles on the gels were not compromised and MS/MS based sequence coverages higher than 80% could be obtained. In addition, the visual tracking of covalently stained proteins and peptides facilitates method development and validation. Altogether, this new chemo-proteomic approach enables true "at-line" analysis of proteins.
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Mata-Gomez, M., Yasui, M. & Winkler, R. Rapid pre-gel visualization of proteins with mass spectrometry compatibility. Nat Prec (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2010.5163.1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2010.5163.1