Background: The identification of proteins by mass spectrometry is a standard method in biopharmaceutical quality control\r\nand biochemical research. Prior to identification by mass spectrometry, proteins are usually pre-separated by\r\nelectrophoresis. However, current protein staining and de-staining protocols are tedious and time consuming, and\r\ntherefore prolong the sample preparation time for mass spectrometry.\r\nMethodology and Principal Findings: We developed a 1-minute covalent pre-gel staining protocol for proteins, which does\r\nnot require de-staining before the mass spectrometry analysis. We investigated the electrophoretic properties of derivatized\r\nproteins and peptides and studied their behavior in mass spectrometry. Further, we elucidated the preferred reaction of\r\nproteins with Uniblue A and demonstrate the integration of the peptide derivatization into typical informatics tools.\r\nConclusions and Significance: The Uniblue A staining method drastically speeds up the sample preparation for the mass\r\nspectrometry based identification of proteins. The application of this chemo-proteomic strategy will be advantageous for\r\nroutine quality control of proteins and for time-critical tasks in protein analysis.
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