Microchip-based reversed-phase liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry platform for protein analysis

Due to the high throughput and high sensitivity, the hyphenation of microchip-based high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry has been paid much attention. In our recent work, with poly (lauryl methacrylate-co-trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate) monolithic materials prepared in microchannels as trap and separation columns, conventional micro-liquid chromatography pumps and valves for fluidic control, and a small-bore open-tube capillary attached to the outlet channel as chip-mass spectrometer (MS) interface, the microchip-based reversed-phase liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (RPLC-MS/MS) platform was established, and applied for the identification of proteins. By such platform, 100 ng digest of bovine serum albumin (BSA) was successfully analyzed with the sequence coverages as 39.37%, 37.89% and 34.10% (with the relative standard deviation (RSD) of 7.3%) in three runs, separately. To evaluate the chip-to-chip reproducibility, BSA was identified by such platform with the microchips from different batches containing trap column, separation column and chip-MS interface. The obtained sequence coverage and the number of peptides identified were comparable. All these results showed high sensitivity and good reproducibility of such platform, demonstrating the great potential for rapid protein analysis.