“…These studies were performed off-line with using TiO 2 microtips before LC-ESI/MS or MALDI/MS analysis of the desorbed phosphopeptides (Larsen et al, 2005a; The steps that are crucial to obtain selectivity and high recovery with TiO 2 material are (i) sample loading, (ii) unbound fraction wash, and (iii) elution of adsorbed phosphopeptides. The first is carried out under acidic conditions [i.e., 0.1% aqueous TFA or formic acid (FA; Kuroda et al, 2004;Hata et al, 2006); 0.1 M acetic acid (Pinkse et al, 2004;Liang et al, 2006)]. It was demonstrated that the addition of 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB; Larsen et al, 2005a;Thingholm et al, 2006;Rinalducci et al, 2006), as well as the use of high percentage of FA (2%; Schlosser, Vanselow, & Kramer, 2005) during loading and wash significantly increased the selectivity towards phosphopeptides.…”