Proteomics

Buying guide

Because this work spans separation, detection and the reagents between them, the price range is wider than any single category shows. Prices run from EUR 1 to EUR 533.942. The low end is reagents, enzymes and consumables, the kind of thing a lab reorders by the box. The high end is the complete analytical platforms, a high-resolution mass spectrometer coupled to a liquid chromatography front-end, which is the part of the pipeline most labs buy once and keep running for years. Between those sit the electrophoresis and blotting rigs and the standalone chromatography systems.

Condition matters most on the instruments, less on the consumables. 89 percent of the listings are used. For a mass analyser or a chromatography pump, a used unit asks the buyer to weigh calibration state and service history, both of which belong to the individual listing rather than to any blanket rule. Used and refurbished instruments are listed below new prices, and that price difference is the clear reason to consider them; where warranty matters it is arranged in consultation for the specific listing, so the question to ask is about that listing and not about the category. Parts can be sourced via Questpair when an older platform needs them. For reagents and enzymes the condition distinction carries less weight, and the decision there is mostly about shelf life and specification, which again sit on the listing itself.

Types of Proteomics

Proteomics runs as a pipeline, and the instruments this field draws on are mass spectrometers, chromatography systems, electrophoresis and western blotting rigs, and the sample preparation and reagent lines that feed them. The stages below are the work in the order a lab actually does it, each one constrained by the one before.

How is the sample prepared for analysis?

Before anything separates or ionises, the proteins have to come out of the cells intact and in a form the downstream steps accept. This is where sample preparation equipment and the reagent lines sit: lysis, digestion into peptides, and cleanup to strip salts and detergents that would otherwise poison the detector. Enzymes and biochemicals do the digestion, antibodies and reagents handle enrichment where a lab is chasing a subset rather than the whole proteome. The quality of this step sets a ceiling on everything after it, because a contaminated or partially digested sample does not improve further along the line. A lab running affinity enrichment leans on reagents here that a shotgun workflow never touches.

Separating the peptides

A digested sample is too complex to read all at once, so it is spread out in time or space first. Two routes dominate, and they constrain what comes next in different ways.

Chromatography, specifically liquid chromatography, feeds peptides to the detector in a continuous gradient, one narrow band after another. The column and pump determine how finely the mixture resolves, and that resolution is what the analyser then has to keep pace with. Electrophoresis separates by size or charge on a gel instead, and western blotting extends that into targeted detection of named proteins. These are different jobs: chromatography front-ends a mass spectrometer, while the gel-based route often stands alone as a confirmation or a targeted readout.

Why does the separation method constrain the detector?

This is the join a single-category page can never describe. A fast chromatographic gradient delivers peptide bands only a few seconds wide, and a detector that scans too slowly simply misses half of them. So the choice of column and gradient is not independent of the mass analyser; it sets the scan speed the analyser must hit. A lab pairing a high-resolution instrument with a slow separation wastes the resolution, and the reverse wastes the separation. The two have to be matched, which is why proteomics is sourced as a connected set and not as a shelf of standalone boxes.

Reading the proteins

The mass spectrometer is where identity and quantity are read. Peptides are ionised, measured by mass, and often fragmented and measured again, so the instrument reconstructs which proteins were present and in what amount. Analytical instrumentation in this class spans a wide range of resolving power and speed, and the right end depends on the question: discovery work that maps a whole proteome asks more of the analyser than a targeted assay checking a handful of known markers.

Where do antibodies still fit a mass-spec workflow?

Even when the readout is a mass spectrometer, antibodies and reagents often appear upstream, pulling a specific protein class out of the background so the analyser sees it against less noise. That is enrichment, not detection, and it is why the antibody and reagent lines sit in a proteomics pipeline alongside instruments that do not use antibodies at all. Among the listings that specify a type, the biotech and life sciences and reagent categories carry the consumables this enrichment depends on.