In this work, we pioneered a combination
of ultralow flow (ULF)
high-efficiency ultranarrow bore monolithic LC columns coupled to
MS via a high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry
(FAIMS) interface to evaluate the potential applicability for high
sensitivity, robust, and reproducible proteomic profiling of low nanogram-level
complex biological samples. As a result, ULF LC-FAIMS-MS brought unprecedented
sensitivity levels and high reproducibility in bottom-up proteomic
profiling. In addition, FAIMS improved the dynamic range, signal-to-noise
ratios, and detection limits in ULF LC–MS-based measurements
by significantly reducing chemical noise in comparison to the conventional
nanoESI interface used with the same ULF LC–MS setup. Two,
three, or four compensation voltages separated by at least 15 V were
tested within a single LC–MS run using the FAIMS interface.
The optimized ULF LC-ESI-FAIMS-MS/MS conditions resulted in identification
of 2,348 ± 42 protein groups, 10,062 ± 285 peptide groups,
and 15,734 ± 350 peptide-spectrum matches for 1 ng of a HeLa
digest, using a 1 h gradient at the flow rate of 12 nL/min, which
represents an increase by 38%, 91%, and 131% in respective identifications,
as compared to the control experiment (without FAIMS). To evaluate
the practical utility of the ULF LC-ESI-FAIMS-MS platform in proteomic
profiling of limited samples, approximately 100, 1,000, and 10,000
U937 myeloid leukemia cells were processed, and a one-tenth of each
sample was analyzed. Using the optimized conditions, we were able
to reliably identify 251 ± 54, 1,135 ± 80, and 2,234 ±
25 protein groups from injected aliquots corresponding to ∼10,
100, and 1,000 processed cells.