Recent advances in sample pre-treatment for emerging methods in proteomic analysis

Abstract

The objective of proteomics is the study of proteins (including their structure elucidation, the characterization of their role in biochemical process, the detection and identification of anomalous modifications in their structures and behavior, etc.) from both a qualitative and quantitative point of view. These studies have to face several difficulties as (a) the intrinsic complexity of protein molecules, (b) the low concentrations of the studied proteins, (c) the complexity of the biological samples (which could lead to interferences from the components of these matrixes), etc. Thus, the sample preparation procedure has a critical importance in order to obtain good separations and sensitivity in the results. In this paper, recent sample treatment methodologies for proteomic studies are reviewed and discussed. These methods include recent innovations in nanoparticle enrichment pre-treatment (for both the selective pre-concentration of the studied protein and the microwave-assisted digestion of the sample), treatments for tissue imaging (based on surface analysis of the studied biological tissues) and protein microarrays analysis (which allows the simultaneous determination of a high number of different proteins or associated species on a glass slide support).