Friday, October 18, 2013

New quality control tools for proteomics!


A few years ago I first submitted my book proposal for a text detailing Quality Control in Proteomics.  One of my favorite rejections involved a statement about a general lack of interest in the field.

But now!  QC is all over the place.  We have cool programs like SympatiQCo, and awesome reagents like the peptide retention time calibration mixture (PRTC).  More and more people all the time are using some level of quality control before just shooting their samples onto their instruments.

Now we have a new resource for targeted studies of human plasma, namely commercially available protein quality control standards.  These are being produced by a company called MRM Proteomics and you can read more about them here.

The kits from MRM proteomics are heavy labeled peptides from known biomarkers.  It is important to note that they are single peptides from these proteins of interest.  They are going to be extremely useful for testing the general health of your LC-MS system (like the PRTC peptides).

They may also be useful for setting up preliminary assays for these proteins of interest.  An important note:  the ASCP and other clinical organizations will not accept a single peptide from a protein as a positive finding for any assay.  Most reviewers will not accept a single peptide either.  But for setting up your experiment and for making sure your LC-MS is in tip-top condition, this is going to be another extremely valuable tool for our labs.

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