Absolute (molar)
quantification of clinically relevant proteins
determines their reference values in liquid and solid biopsies. The
FastCAT (for Fast-track QconCAT) method employs multiple short (<50
kDa), stable-isotope labeled chimeric proteins (CPs) composed of concatenated
quantotypic (Q)-peptides representing the quantified proteins. Each
CP also comprises scrambled sequences of reference (R)-peptides that
relate its abundance to a single protein standard (bovine serum albumin,
BSA). FastCAT not only alleviates the need to purify CP or use sodium
dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) but
also improves the accuracy, precision, and dynamic range of the absolute
quantification by grouping Q-peptides according to the expected abundance
of the target proteins. We benchmarked FastCAT against the reference
method of MS Western and tested it in the direct molar quantification
of neurological markers in human cerebrospinal fluid at the low ng/mL
level.