BAC-DROP: Rapid digestion of proteome fractionated via dissolvable polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and its application to bottom-up proteomics workflow

The GeLC-MS workflow, which combines low-cost, easy-to-use SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), is very popular in current bottom-up proteomics. However, GeLC-MS requires that PAGE-separated proteins undergo overnight enzymatic digestion in a gel, resulting in more than 20 hours of sample preparation for LC-MS. In this study, we overcame the limitations of GeLC-MS by developing a rapid digestion workflow for PAGE separation proteins using N,N'-bis(acryloyl)cystamine (BAC) cross-linked gels that can be solubilized by reductive treatment.