The overall history and recent advancements in Surface-Enhanced Laser Desorption/Ionization (SELDI) affinity technology is reviewed. A detailed account of SELDI technology, utilizing Immobilized-Metal Affinity surfaces, pseudo-specific chromatographic surfaces, and biospecific interactive surfaces, is presented with particular emphasis placed upon examination of fundamental characteristics as well as specific applications for each. Finally, a detailed review of the specific use of such affinity surfaces in fundamental aspects of clinical, process, and research proteomics activity is presented.

Autoantibody-mediated tissue destruction is among the main features of organ-specific autoimmunity. This report describes ''an antibody enzyme'' (abzyme) contribution to the site-specific degradation of a neural antigen. We detected proteolytic activity toward myelin basic protein (MBP) in the fraction of antibodies purified from the sera of humans with multiple sclerosis (MS) and mice with induced experimental allergic encephalomyelitis. Chromatography and zymography data demonstrated that the proteolytic activity of this preparation was exclusively associated with the antibodies. No activity was found in the IgG fraction of healthy donors. The human and murine abzymes efficiently cleaved MBP but not other protein substrates tested. The sites of MBP cleavage determined by mass spectrometry were localized within immunodominant regions of MBP. The abzymes could also cleave recombinant substrates containing encephalytogenic MBP 85-101 peptide. An established MS therapeutic Copaxone appeared to be a specific abzyme inhibitor. Thus, the discovered epitope-specific antibodymediated degradation of MBP suggests a mechanistic explanation of the slow development of neurodegeneration associated with MS.

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