Near real-time plasma proteomics by LCMS!

 

One of the historic (and largely accurate) criticisms of LCMS proteomics is that it is slow.

Slooow.

Slooooooooooooow.

What parts are slow? 

Sample prep has historically taken 16 hours, though faster higher temperature methods have really taken center stage. We often do 2 hour digestions at 47C but that's after 1 hr of reduction and alkylation and possibly after homogenization or enrichment. Still not fast. 

Also the HPLCs on mass specs are slow. Smart new LCs have improved this a lot, including technologies like dual trap single column HPLC (DTSC).

What if you ran an LCMS system really really fast. And what if your total sample prep was almost as fast? 

What's your argument against LCMS proteomics then? Dynamic range? Okay, valid, but that number is going up by the day. 

Dual trap single column HPLC mass spec (fast) coupled with a new protease that can digest a sample in minutes???