Use of monolithic supports for high-throughput protein and peptide separation in proteomics

The exclusive properties of monolithic supports enable fast mass transfer, high porosity, low back pressure, easy preparation process and miniaturisation, and the availability of different chemistries make them particularly suitable materials for high-throughput (HTP) protein and peptide separation. In this review recent advances in monolith-based chromatographic supports for HTP screening of protein and peptide samples are presented and their application in HTP sample preparation (separation, enrichment, depletion, proteolytic digestion) for HTP proteomics is discussed. Development and applications of different monolithic capillary columns in HTP MS-based bottom-up and top-down proteomics are overviewed. By discussing the chromatographic conditions and the mass spectrometric data acquisition conditions an attempt is made to present currently demonstrated capacities of monolithic capillary columns for HTP identification and quantification of proteins and peptides from complex biological samples by MS-based proteomics. Some recent advances in basic monolith technology of importance for proteomics are also discussed.