Normal Equine BALF Proteomics - Functional modelling of an equine bronchoalveolar lavage fluid proteome provides experimental confirmation and functional annotation of equine genome sequences

Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was collected from three clinically normal horses by infusing 300 ml of warm saline through a 300 cm foley catheter that was passed through the nasal passage into a terminal bronchus of the lung. BALF was retrieved by manual aspiration using a 60 cc syringe, placed immediately on ice, transported to the laboratory, and centrifuged (600xg 10 minutes 4oC). Aliquots of cell free BALF supernatant were frozen at -80C for subsequent proteomic analysis. Proteomic analysis was performed using a composite sample consisting of 100 g of BALF protein from each of three horses. Triplicate aliquots of the composite (75 g of protein each) were subjected to proteomic analysis as described (McCarthy et al. 2006) except that we did not perform differential detergent fractionation and we used one dimensional liquid chromatography (1D LC) nanospray ionization and not electrospray ionization.