Pretreatment of low-abundance peptides on detonation nanodiamond for direct analysis by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Detonation nanodiamond (dND) was firstly employed as adsorbent for pretreatment of peptides in dilute/contaminated sample solution. Detonation nanodiamond showed high efficiency for isolating and enriching peptides in a wide pH range. Remarkably, good tolerance capability toward salts and detergents could be achieved by using dNDs. Due to the inherent specificities of dNDs, dND-bound peptides could be directly analyzed by MALDI-TOF MS, so as to avoid the elution step and reduce sample loss. This pretreatment method also exhibited a better performance for protein identification compared to solvent evaporation and Ziptip pretreatment approach.