Enhancing plasma peptide MALDI-TOF-MS profiling by mesoporous silica assisted crystallization.

Promising profiling techniques based on new material/solid phase extraction for capturing "molecular signatures" from body fluids are being coupled to MALDI-TOF-MS. Sample preparation significantly influences spectrum quality in this ionization method. Mesoporous silica beads (MSB), by the means of nano-sized porous channels with high surface area, enable harvesting of peptides from plasma and serum excluding large size proteins. We have investigated the morphology of a sample slurry, developed as a new tool for plasma peptides enrichment based on mesoporous materials. Our study highlights a correlation between crystals morphology and enhanced performances in MALDI-TOF-MS analysis. This is the first report which correlates the increase in signal intensity with crystal formation in samples preparations which make use of various kinds of slurries for the analysis of samples clinically relevant like human plasma.