Protein digests are widely studied in proteomics and protein data analysis. Prior to a mass spectrometric analysis, it is often necessary to desalt the samples to minimize possible interferences or high background noise. The necessary sample preparation steps such as eluting the samples, evaporating the samples and resuspending the residues are very time-consuming and throughput-limiting processes.
The use of EVOTIPs (Evosep, Odense, Denmark) enables simplified purification without evaporation and resuspension.
Automation is essential to further increase efficiency. At the Center for Life Science Automation at the University of Rostock (Germany), the process was automated on a Biomek i7 liquid handler platform, eliminating the original centrifugation steps by using a positive pressure extractor.
