Recent technological advances in mass spectrometry promise to add single-cell proteomics to the biologist’s toolbox. Here we discuss the current status and what is needed for this exciting technology to lead to biological insight — alone or as a complement to other omics technologies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Elmentaite, R., Domínguez Conde, C., Yang, L. & Teichmann, S. A. Nat. Rev. Genet. 23, 395–410 (2022).
Deng, Y. et al. Nature 609, 375–383, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05094-1 (2022).
Milo, R., Jorgensen, P., Moran, U., Weber, G. & Springer, M. Nucleic Acids Res. 38, D750–D753 (2010).
Zhu, Y. et al. Nat. Commun. 9, 882 (2018).
Brunner, A.-D. et al. Mol. Syst. Biol. 18, e10798 (2022).
Kelly, R. T. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 19, 1739–1748 (2020).
Stejskal, K., Op de Beeck, J., Dürnberger, G., Jacobs, P. & Mechtler, K. Anal. Chem. 93, 8704–8710 (2021).
Müller, J. B. et al. Nature 582, 592–596 (2020).
Sandow, J. J., Infusini, G., Dagley, L. F., Larsen, R. & Webb, A. I. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/657908 (2021).
Ludwig, C. et al. Mol. Syst. Biol. 14, e8126 (2018).
Demichev, V., Messner, C. B., Vernardis, S. I., Lilley, K. S. & Ralser, M. Nat. Methods 17, 41–44 (2020).
Bekker-Jensen, D. B. et al. Cell Syst. 4, 587–599.e4 (2017).
Meier, F., Geyer, P. E., Virreira Winter, S., Cox, J. & Mann, M. Nat. Methods 15, 440–448 (2018).
Budnik, B., Levy, E., Harmange, G. & Slavov, N. Genome Biol. 19, 161 (2018).
Cheung, T. K. et al. Nat. Methods 18, 76–83 (2021).
Ye, Z., Batth, T. S., Rüther, P. & Olsen, J. V. Commun. Biol. 5, 150 (2022).
Minogue, C. E. et al. Anal. Chem. 87, 2570–2575 (2015).
Derks, J. et al. Nat. Biotechnol. 41, 50–59 (2023).
Griffiths, J. R. et al. J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 25, 767–777 (2014).
Thielert, M. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.02.518917 (2022).
Messner, C. B. et al. Nat. Biotechnol. 39, 846–854 (2021).
Mund, A. et al. Nat. Biotechnol. 40, 1231–1240 (2022).
Rosenberger, F. A. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.03.518957 (2022).
Kühl, I. et al. eLife 6, e30952 (2017).
Acknowledgements
We thank the members of our single-cell and DVP teams in Munich and Copenhagen for discussions. The authors are supported by grants from the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, Germany, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program ISLET (No. 874839). F.A.R. is an EMBO postdoctoral fellowship holder (ALTF 399-2021). We thank Juliet Percival (Percival Press, Durham, UK) for the scientific illustrations.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
M.M., M.T. and F.A.R. conceived the original idea. M.M., F.A.R. and M.T. wrote and edited the original draft. F.A.R., M.T. and M.M. conceptualized and guided the illustration process. All authors wrote, edited and gave final approval to the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
M.M. is an indirect shareholder in Evosep Biosystems. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rosenberger, F.A., Thielert, M. & Mann, M. Making single-cell proteomics biologically relevant. Nat Methods 20, 320–323 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-01771-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-01771-9
- Springer Nature America, Inc.
This article is cited by
-
Spatial single-cell mass spectrometry defines zonation of the hepatocyte proteome
Nature Methods (2023)
-
Development of novel isobaric tags enables accurate and sensitive multiplexed proteomics using complementary ions
Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (2023)