Immunoassays with direct mass spectrometric detection

A rapid, specific, and sensitive method for the detection of protein-protein interactions is of crucial importance for drug discovery and clinical diagnostics. Mass spectrometry plays a major role in the analysis of proteins, but its application to the routine analysis of protein complexes has been lagging behind. A new strategy for high-throughput analysis of protein interactions is presented here. We demonstrate application to immunochemical questions such as epitope mapping, kinetic studies, and sandwich assays. The methodology is based on a direct mass spectrometric readout for antigen-antibody complexes in the 150-400 kDa range. This has become possible using a novel detector technology and chemical cross-linking to stabilize complexes for analysis by MALDI MS. We demonstrate high detection sensitivity (femtomole quantities of antigen), high specificity (specific detection of antigen directly in serum), high accuracy, and high speed (minutes per assay), surpassing conventional analytical methods by more than 2 orders of magnitude.