Monday, July 31, 2017

Improving nanoLC with temperature controls!


At the top of the list of variables I never thought about manipulating, I'd like to present this new study at JPR!


To be perfectly honest, I only increase the temperature of my stationary phase for 2 reasons
1) To keep it higher than room temp, so that daily lab temperature fluctuations wouldn't have adverse effects on my reproducibility
2) To reduce my back pressure so I'm not worried about column fatigue and normal, inevitable back pressure increase leading to an error 15 minutes after I get home

However, I'm also fully aware of this paper and it's key points....


I've seen this numerous times in the field -- you can't get cutting edge proteomics without perfect chromatography -- and this paper suggest a number of improvements beyond anything I've seen before.

How 'bout this -- lower column temperture can improve the peak shape of modified peptides?
Or -- trapping at low temperature and cleaning your trap at higher temperature can massively reduce crossover contamination?!?
Or -- you can't keep the temperature too high or it will degrade your columns?!?

All stuff I really had never stopped to consider that are extensively evaluated and revealed in this nice paper.

Quick aside -- I stopped for a second to wonder who would be evaluating these conditions and checked on the authors. Evosep biosystems is a really interesting startup that is collaborating with the Max Planck institute and Denmark university systems to address the biggest challenges facing clinical proteomics.

They don't have any prodcuts yet -- just some really interesting videos on YouTube that demonstrate more innovative thinking like the stuff in this paper, but with a motto like this....


...I'm know I'm going to be keeping an eye on them!

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