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(2024)Cite this article
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A new mass analyzer enables protein identification at high speed and depth.
In June 2023, the proteomics community was electrified by the launch of the first conceptually novel mass analyzer in a commercial instrument since 2005, announced at the annual meeting of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. The addition of a so-called Asymmetric Track Lossless (Astral) mass analyzer into an Orbitrap instrument affords high data acquisition speed, sensitivity, resolution and mass accuracy. Writing in Nature Biotechnology, Guzman et al.1 have now explored the analytical merits of this new instrument and shown that the depth of proteome analysis reaches exhaustive comprehensiveness and, at the same time, makes it feasible to analyze 48 human proteomes or 100 yeast proteomes in 1 day. The study also reveals that the instrument dissolves the differences between data-dependent acquisition and data-independent acquisition modes by combining the best of both worlds: both systematic and narrow selection of peptides for sequencing across the most productive mass range. In other words, scientists no longer have to decide up front whether they plan to discover unknown proteins in a sample — the strength of data-dependent acquisition — or consistently assay proteins presumed to be present in a sample — the strength of data-independent acquisition.
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B.K. is a founder and shareholder of OmicScouts and MSAID. He has no operational role in either company. All other authors declare no competing interests.
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Kuster, B., Tüshaus, J. & Bayer, F.P. A new mass analyzer shakes up the proteomics field.
Nat Biotechnol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02129-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02129-y
