Assessment of suitability of magnetic beads for purification of rat plasma in proteomic analyses by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight MS.

Plasma is a complex matrix and has to be clarified or fractionated to obtain informative MS data. Although there are a number of prefractionation methods to clean up complex biological matrixes before proteomic analysis, these methods require large sample volumes and are costly and time-consuming. Alternatively, recently introduced magnetic beads (MB) appear to be attractive in overcoming these difficulties. Therefore, we were interested in investigating the applicability of MB in the clarification of rat plasma samples for proteome analyses. For this purpose, we used complementary supports, such as hydrophobic interaction chromatography-based MB (MB-C18) and weak cation-exchange chromatography-based MB (MB-WCX). MB-based fractionated samples were either spotted directly or underwent tryptic digestion before matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) spotting. Samples from both MB separation techniques gave clean and well-resolved MALDI-time-of-flight MS spectra in the low molecular mass range of 1-10 kDa with alpha-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamic acid as the matrix. Both techniques gave approximately 300 analyte peaks in this mass range. Our results showed that both MB-based separation procedures gave complementary mass spectral information. This approach provided information on the identity of a number of less-abundant and more-abundant proteins in plasma. Our findings suggest that this MB-based proteomic approach can be valuable in conducting faster screening of plasma samples for protein profiling.