Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, begin developing more than a decade before clinical symptoms manifest. Fluid biomarkers can potentially predict early risk, enabling timely intervention strategies. Clinical proteomics research in this area focuses on the analysis of plasma, serum, and cerebrospinal fluid from clinical cohorts using mass spectrometry.

Sample preparation for explorative proteomics and targeted mass spectrometric protein quantification are relatively complex, requiring the addition of reagents for reduction and alkylation of cysteine residues, tryptic digestion, TMT labeling, and spiking in stable isotope-labeled standards. Additionally, reducing sample volumes to conserve sample and decrease reagent costs requires pipetting at low- or sub-microliter volumes. The workflow is further complicated by the need to dispense a variety of reagents, including challenging liquids such as acetonitrile.