Progress of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry-based single-cell proteomics

Abstract

Proteins are the main functional executor of cellular function. Due to the fact that proteins could not be amplified in vitro, the development of single-cell proteomics technology lags behind single-cell genomics and transcriptomics technologies. The traditional proteomics technology detects the average protein expression levels from large amounts of cells; nevertheless, it is unable to address the cell subtypes and heterogeneity among individual cells. Analysis of proteins at the single-cell level can help characterize the molecular basis of cell phenotypes and heterogeneity. With the rapid development of mass spectrometers, mass spectrometry-based methods have pushed single-cell proteomics to a new level. In this review, we summarized the recent research progress of single-cell proteomics methods based on LC-MS/MS, including single cell selection, sample preparation, isotope labelling technology, peptide separation, mass spectrometry analysis and data analysis, and its applications in biomedical research. The challenges and prospects of single-cell proteomics in the future are also prospected. Advances in single cell proteomics will provide new ideas and methods for biomedical research and deepen our understanding of human health and disease.

Keywords

• single cell
• proteomics
• mass spectrometry (ms)
• liquid chromatography (lc)
• lc-ms