What Are the Practical Applications of Single-Cell Proteomics?

Single-cell proteomics (SCP) is an exciting new field of study with developments in the areas of sample preparation, instrumentation and informatics. SCP has captured the imagination of biologists and clinicians and the critical interest of both academic and commercial mass-spectrometry groups. Currently (i.e., at the time this manuscript was written), SCP is still difficult and slow relative to competing single-cell technologies. What SCP may lose in relative throughput, it trades for direct analysis of protein and proteoforms, albeit with biases toward those of the highest relative concentration in each cell. These strengths may not make SCP the technology of choice for every study. This perspective is intended to identify current and future biological or clinical areas where SCP has or could have the greatest potential to advance human health and knowledge. I will also discuss applications where SCP would be less impactful than other technologies and where SCP, when mature, could play a true role in clinical diagnostics.