Depletion of high-abundance proteins from serum by immunoaffinity chromatography: a MALDI-FT-MS study

Immunodepletion of high-abundance proteins from serum is a widely used initial step in biomarker discovery studies. In the present work we have investigated the reproducibility of the depletion step by comparing 250 serum samples from prostate cancer patients. All samples were depleted on a single immunoaffinity column over a time period of 6 weeks with automated peak detection and fraction collection. Reproducibility in terms of surface area of the depleted serum protein peak at 280nm was below 7% relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) and the collected volume of the relevant fraction was 0.97mL (4.5% R.S.D.). Proteins in the depleted serum fraction were subsequently digested with trypsin and analyzed by MALDI-FT-MS. The degree of the depletion of albumin, transferrin and alpha-1-antitrypsin was determined by comparing the intensity of peptide peaks before and after depletion of 11 samples taken at regular time intervals from amongst the 250 depleted, randomized samples. As a positive control we evaluated peaks of apolipoprotein A1 (the most abundant serum protein remaining after depleteion) showing a clear increase in intensity of these peaks in the depleted samples. From this study we conclude that the depletion of the 250 serum samples was complete and reproducible over a period of 6 weeks.