John Yates

This is the first of a four-part series of articles exploring current topics in separation science that will be addressed at the HPLC 2016 conference in San Francisco, USA, from 19–24 June.

In proteomics studies, proteins are digested into hundreds of thousands of peptides, thus creating very large and complicated mixtures. Simultaneous electrospray ionization of these complex mixtures, however, results in suppression of ion formation. Therefore, it is essential to have effective chromatographic methods to separate the peptides before analysis with mass spectrometry, to relieve ion suppression and to allow the mass spectrometer sufficient time to collect tandem mass spectra of peptide ions. The challenges involved in developing such separations are great, however. This is the first of a series of articles exploring topics that will be addressed at the HPLC 2016 conference in San Francisco, from June 19 to 24.