ICP-MS-BASED STRATEGIES FOR PROTEIN QUANTIFICATION

In the post-genomics era, proteomics has become a central branch in life sciences. An understanding of biological functions will not only rely on protein identification, but also on protein quantification hi a living organism. Most of the existing methods for quantitative proteomics are based on isotope labeling combined with molecular mass spectrometry. Recently, a remarkable progress that utilizes inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) as an attractive complement to electrospray MS and MALDI MS for protein quantification, especially for absolute quantification, has been achieved. This review will selectively discuss the recent advances of ICP-MS-based technique, which will be expected to further mature and to become one of the key methods in quantitative proteomics. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.. Mass Spec Rev 29: 326-348. 2010