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by skadamou
317 days ago
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There was quite a bit of fluff here so I only skimmed the article but the major takeaway here is that they figured out how to run protein mass-spec "by an order of magnitude" faster. This is certainly cool but I'm not sure I understand why this is on the front page of HN. What am I missing? edit: Does anyone familiar with the field know what the significance of being able to run protein mass-spec an order of magnitude faster is? What kind of questions can we ask now that we couldn't ask before? |
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Barcodes that can 9 plex samples? Thermo TMT is up to 32 plex. Multiple injections with time offset? Also not a new idea.
What is unstated is that there is no free lunch. You can go fast or you can go “deep” (high resolution/separation). Running a MS at breakneck speed does work, but you are sacrificing quantitative accuracy and the depth of proteome coverage. Which is entirely valid way run, depending on your use case. Work in a hospital and need to do 1000 samples a day? Fast and targeted makes sense. Trying to discover some novel Alzheimer’s biomarker? You want to go slowly and measure everything you can.
Ultimately this is going to be just another tool available for researchers who have to weigh the pros and cons for the particulars of their samples.
The mention of PTMs was also a bit of a distraction. Measuring PTMs is an entirely different level of sophistication for which fast MS is rarely appropriate.
Edit: I should add that Alzheimer’s was probably just used as marketing copy, but is a terrible example for ludicrous-speed-go. Human Alzheimer’s samples are incredibly hard to procure. You either need brain or spinal fluid (apparently very painful to extract from the living). For precious samples you are usually willing to operate more slowly to ensure you do a better job.