A rapid workflow for high-throughput FFPE-based quantitative proteomics

Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples are an invaluable resource to study the underlying molecular mechanisms of the diseases and when coupled with laser capture microdissection (LCM, isolation of sub histological regions of the tissue sections is readily obtained for further analysis. LCM-based FFPE tissue proteomics is gaining clinicopathological significance particularly in biomarker discovery driven research, beyond its conventional morphology-based application in laboratory diagnosis. Processing of laser capture microdissected tissue sections can be challenging for quantitative proteomic analysis due to lower amount of protein retrieved and losses during the sample processing. A robust, streamlined and automated sample preparation workflow for efficient processing of large cohort of LCM samples which is a primary requisite for biomarker type of studies is needed. Here, we propose a new sample processing workflow for processing of FFPE samples and enable scalable, automated extraction of clean peptides from unprocessed or H&E-stained FFPE tissue sections for deep bottom-up protein profiling and quantification.