Rapid microscale in-gel processing and digestion of proteins using surface acoustic waves.

A new method for in-gel sample processing and tryptic digestion of proteins is described. Sample preparation, rehydration, in situ digestion and peptide extraction from gel slices are dramatically accelerated by treating the gel slice with surface acoustic waves (SAWs). Only 30 minutes total workflow time is required for this new method to produce base peak chromatograms (BPCs) of similar coverage and intensity to those observed for traditional processing and overnight digestion. Simple set up, good reproducibility, excellent peptide recoveries, rapid turnover of samples and high confidence protein identifications put this technology at the fore-front of the next generation of proteomics sample processing tools.