R&D Success Stories / A Commercially Based Proteomics > AP-MALDI MS/MS > Internet BioInformatics Approach for Rapid Identification of Biological Warfare Agents

Proteomics > AP-MALDI MS/MS > Internet BioInformatics

We are developing a broadband system for rapid detection and identification of both biological and chemical agents based on an atmospheric pressure matrix-assisted laser desorption/ ionization (AP/MALDI) tandem mass spectrometry (MS) and internet-based bio-informatics.

Important technologies we use in the proposed system are as follows: selective solubilization of a small family of bioagent proteins followed by their proteolytic digestion; ionization of the peptide digest mixture using the atmospheric pressure MALDI method; structural analysis of peptide ions by tandem MS; and bioagent identification using an industry-standard bioinformatics internet database search approach.

The key features distinguishing our MS-based approaches are the use of:

• Fast on-probe isolation of a limited number of proteins (1 to 10, depending on the class of agent) followed by in situ proteolysis;
• An atmospheric pressure MALDI ion source resulting in no time lost for breaking the vacuum of a mass spectrometer; and
• Publicly available (and potentially any) proteome internet databases for reliable
  identification of biomarker proteins and hence bioagents.

The final system will be fast (less than 4 minutes per test which will include agent screening in a broad range) and cost-efficient (pennies for consumables), capable of robust and fully autonomous operation, and have broad and sensitive agent coverage with a low false alarm rate due to the use of AP-MALDI tandem MS analysis.