Press Release

Protein Discovery's PPS Silent® Surfactant for Mass Spec Sample Prep Lyses Cells, Solubilizes Proteins, Degrades in Acid

Knoxville, Tennessee, May 9, 2006—Protein Discovery, Inc., a privately held life sciences company, today announced the commercial introduction of PPS Silent® Surfactant, an acid-cleavable detergent for cell membrane disruption and protein solubilization. PPS Silent Surfactant will be marketed to proteomics researchers analyzing low-abundance cellular proteins using mass spectrometry. The new reagent offers the same detergent properties as conventional surfactants, but when it is no longer needed, it degrades into easily removed compounds with no detergent activity. Unlike conventional detergents, which retain foaming and other detergent properties that interfere with the final stages of mass spectrometry sample preparation, PPS Silent Surfactant does not diminish spectral quality or protein detection sensitivity. Today's announcement marks Protein Discovery's entry into the market for mass spectrometry sample preparation reagents.

Initially developed to improve the quality and sensitivity of MALDI mass spectra, PPS Silent Surfactant has also become popular among Protein Discovery's beta test group for preparing protein mixtures and digests for electrospray ionization (ESI). "PPS Silent Surfactant definitely helps with the recovery and digestion of low abundance proteins for shotgun proteomics," said beta tester Michael MacCoss PhD, assistant professor at University of Washington's Department of Genome Sciences. "It clearly outperforms everything else we've used to generate peptides from complex protein mixtures. The cleavage products of Protein Discovery's detergent are still soluble after acid hydrolysis, so you don't have to try to spin out leftover insoluble residue before analyzing the peptides with nanoLC-MS/MS," he added.

Jeremy Norris PhD, director of mass spectrometry at Protein Discovery, designed the new mass spectrometry compatible detergent and developed its synthetic pathway. "PPS Silent Surfactant is an aggressive detergent which can be used both for membrane disruption and protein solubilization, so researchers don't lose time and sample yields by having to change out their detergent solutions halfway through the experiment," said Dr. Norris. "After cleavage, there's no residual detergent activity to get in the way of mass spec analysis."

The name "PPS Silent Surfactant" is based on the detergent's molecular composition, a pyridine propane sulfonate.

PPS Silent Surfactant is now available for purchase from Protein Discovery in 250 mg, 100 mg, and 10 mg quantities. To place an order, call 865-521-7400.

About Protein Discovery
Protein Discovery, Inc. is a privately held life sciences company developing solutions for molecular research, drug discovery and development, and medical diagnostics using high throughput mass spectrometry. The companyís imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) service allows pharmaceutical and clinical research customers to gain important insights into disease progression, treatment, and metabolic response. The company is also developing a powerful suite of sample preparation products specifically designed to meet the data quality and throughput demands of customers using mass spectrometry in the life sciences industry. For additional information, please visit www.proteindiscovery.com.

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