Isotopically labeled proteome as an internal standard for multiple reaction monitoring-based biomarker quantification

Multiple reaction monitoring is a mass spectrometry technology used to selectively identify and quantify a known molecule in a complex mixture. The technology has gained favor in proteomic applications, especially for biomarker quantification in human samples. For this purpose, employment of internal standard consisting of isotopically (heavy) labeled proteins is currently considered the best way of normalizing sample preparation and correcting for different ionization efficiencies. However, synthesis of heavy-labeled proteins is considered laborious and expensive. The work outlined here presents an efficient strategy of utilizing isotope-labeled amino acids in cell culture to produce heavy-labeled proteins. These are then spiked into serum and serve as internal standards to relatively quantify a large number of target proteins. The method has been applied to quantify 72 proteins in the sera of pancreatic cancer patients with remarkable efficiency and accuracy.