The CEM Discover Proteomics (Contributed by Gravida) is a system for temperature and power controlled microwave-assisted protein digestion. It allows for very short digestion periods of about 10 min. compared to the classical 16-24 h incubation time. We have developed a protocol combining microwave-assisted digestion with the classical overnight incubation for a very efficient and reproducible digestion of difficult to digest samples such as plasma. This protocol was established for accurate peptide/protein quantification by AQUA- (absolute quantification) and PRM- (parallel-reaction monitoring) MS in plasma and lipoprotein samples.
In addition this instrument can be used for more efficient labelling of peptide side chains using various chemical labelling techniques such as ICAT and iTRAQ.