Antibody-based enrichment of peptides on magnetic beads

This study was carried out by Whiteaker et al. to investigate the use of antibody based enrichment of peptides on magnetic beads for mass-spectrometry-based quantification of serum biomarkers (44). The study was prompted by the challenge that is often faced in the development of highly sensitive and specific assays for quantifying proteins (Whiteaker et al. 2007). In this study, the researchers “optimized a magnetic bead-based platform to high-throughout peptide capture and demonstrated that antibody capture followed by mass spectrometry can achieve ion signal enhancement on order of 1000, sufficient for quantifying biomarkers in the physiologically relevant mg/ml range”