Pros:
Huge potential (probably) because if you could gargle a solution and then SMART digest some of it and then find SARS-CoV-2 peptides, that's awesome. That is even easier than a throat swab!
SMART digests are fast, and you don't get easier. In my hands, S-Traps are far far cleaner, but "put protein in this tube and heat it up." If you've got the separation or instrument resolution, that's a great solution. They toss in some PNGase to deglycosylate and it looks like that's the only variation.
Slightly mixed feelings:
1) A 3 hour total run time on a ~$1M Tribrid system running a complex sample method (both high resolution MS/MS and simultaneous low resolution MS/MS acquisition -which, don't get me wrong -- on it's own, that's cool. In the context of a starting point for developing a diagnostic assay? Seems like
2) No data deposited?!? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
(Feel free to explore the hypocrisy from the guy who has been in industry almost his whole career and has deposited very little data because no one would let me do it. That happens, but in this pandemic, we've gotten spoiled. I've downloaded some of the COVID-19 proteomics data from other groups before the preprint even posted.)
Again -- huge promise here. And my assumption is that the team is so busy designing faster assays that they are still waiting for their files to upload.
The gargle avenue could be a huge advance for the ease of diagnostic angles, but if we've barely picked up one ion trap MS/MS spectra on a 3 hour gradient on the world's most sensitive high resolution instrument -- that says a lot about whether this Quantum Discovery over there is gonna be able to pick up a peptide from the same solution.
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