How much better are laser pointers now than they were like 10 years ago? I can get a laser at the dollar tree (if you don't have these -- they're amazing. Every item in the store costs $1 and the items stocked are chosen completely at random. Seriously. Go into one and try to cap yourself at $7. I bet you can't do it) and 1) it's way brighter than the ones even a few years ago 2) the batteries last longer and 3) it's $1. Which is crazy.
What about a real use of lasers, like laser microdissection? Could it possibly be improving at the same rate? Or -- at the rate that proteomics technology is improving?
What if you used the best of both? And you painstakingly optimized EVERYTHING necessary to link the two techniques together? Then you'd have this new paper in JPR.
I'm assuming if you have a Lumos system and you're using 50cm columns on it, you didn't get your laser at a Dollar Tree. I'm also assuming that if you work your way upwards toward identification of 1,500 human proteins(!!!) from stuff you cut with a laser from a slide of tissue that is 10 micrometers thick (probably 1 cell width, right? Google is confused by the question) that I'm not the only person who is super impressed.
The ion trap in the Lumos was used for a lot of the MS/MS (the sensitivity comes in handy when you're trying to resolve individual cell types off slides) and MaxQuant/Perseus/fancy R stuff was used to pull the story all together.
I'm unclear regarding the isolation of specific cell types and what they are, but in one set of samples this group came close to 4,000 proteins ID'ed!!
If it's been a few years since you last used laser microdissection + proteomics and you know someone with a question that only these techniques could answer, maybe it's time to get a new slide and follow the protocols in this new paper to the letter!
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