Unprecedented protein quantification in single cells using advanced proteomics

The scientists, led by Julia Bubis and Manuel Matzinger at the Proteomics Tech Hub, collaborated with Thermo Fisher Scientific to develop a new workflow that takes advantage of the Astral mass spectrometer to deeply study the protein content of one cell at a time, allowing the researchers to find rare or unique cell types hidden within a larger group. The new workflow is particularly useful to study small systems with an inherent cellular heterogeneity. In collaboration with Nicolas Rivron’s group at IMBA, the researchers analyzed blastoids -a model of the early-stage embryo with just 100 cells and three cell lineages-, and were able to study the biology of each lineage in detail.