Mass spectrometry system for sensitive proteomics

我们建议购买一套基于液相色谱串联质谱（LC-MS/MS）技术的蛋白质及其修饰分析系统，这是蛋白质组学（大规模和全面分析蛋白质及其修饰）的有力工具。蛋白质组学技术在生物过程机制的表征和发现药物靶点和生物标志物的诊断和精准医疗方面具有应用。LC-MS/MS能够识别生物和临床样品中的蛋白质，并以高精度和准确性定量其数量。Barts癌症研究所（BCI）的质谱实验室为Barts和伦敦医学与牙科学院（SMD）以及伦敦玛丽女王大学（QMUL）的研究小组提供蛋白质组学支持。该实验室为该机构的大量科学家提供高质量的蛋白质组学服务。来自实验室的数据质量反映在该实验室支持的高排名出版物（过去10年里有70篇）和研究资助（价值约1500万英镑）的数量上，以及它的非学术产出（8项专利和两家衍生公司）上。BCI/SMD蛋白质组学核心实验室由两个基于质谱仪技术的LC-MS/MS系统组成，这些系统已有10多年的历史，不再能够完全支持其用户不断变化的需求。特别是，具有更高灵敏度和分析速度的新仪器的出现开辟了我们现有仪器由于深度和灵敏度的限制而无法承担的新研究途径。最近的一项技术发展是分析单个细胞的能力，而不是像标准蛋白质组学分析那样分析细胞的平均值。结合能够实施这种敏感技术的设备将使我们的研究界能够了解健康生物体的组织异质性，以及这可能如何促进疾病进化和对治疗的反应。安装后，最先进的仪器将用于低投入和单细胞蛋白质组学项目的测试，并由申请人和蛋白质组学设施的其他用户在广泛的项目中使用，这些项目反映了BCI/SMD在癌症、血管和内分泌生物学以及自身免疫疾病方面的研究优势。这台新设备不仅将增加BCI/SMD蛋白质组学设施能够支持的项目数量和这些项目的数据质量，而且还将使我们能够进行单细胞分析研究，这是我们现有仪器无法进行的。

We propose the purchase of a system for the analysis of proteins and their modifications based on a technique named liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), which is a powerful tool for proteomics (large scale and comprehensive analysis of proteins and their modifications). Proteomics technology has applications in the characterisation of mechanisms of biological processes and in the discovering of drug targets and biomarkers for diagnosis and precision medicine. LC-MS/MS is able to identify proteins in biological and clinical samples and also quantify their amounts with high precision and accuracy. The mass spectrometry laboratory at Barts Cancer Institute (BCI) provides proteomics support to research groups at the Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD) and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). This laboratory provides a high quality proteomics service to a large community of scientists at this institution. The quality of the data derived from the laboratory is reflected in the number of high raking publications (>70 in the last 10 years) and research grants (~£15M in value) that the laboratory has supported, as well as in its non-academics outputs (eight patents and two spin-out companies).The BCI/SMD proteomics core laboratory consists of two of LC-MS/MS systems based on mass spectrometer technology that is now more than 10 years old, and is no longer capable of fully supporting the evolving needs of its users. Particularly, the advent of new instruments with greater sensitivity and speed of analysis opens new avenues of research that our current instrumentation, due to limitations in depth and sensitivity, is not able to undertake. A recent technological development is the ability of analysing single cells, instead of an average of cells as in standard proteomics analysis. Incorporation of equipment capable of implementing this sensitive technology will allow our research community to understand tissue heterogeneity in healthy organisms and how this may contribute to disease evolution and responses to therapies.After installation, the state-of-the-art instrument will be tested for low input and single cell proteomics projects and used by the applicants and other users of the proteomics facility in a wide range of projects that reflect BCI/SMD research strengths in cancer, vascular and endocrine biology and auto-immune disease. This new equipment will not only increase the number of projects that the BCI/SMD proteomics facility will be able to support and the quality of data for those projects, but will also allow us to perform research in single cell analysis that is not possible to undertake with our current instrumentation.