Identification of proteins from human cerebrospinal fluid, separated by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis

The aim of this work is to display the protein composition of the cerebrosp inal fluid by two-dimensional (2-D) gel electrophoresis and identify it usi ng different mass spectrometric techniques. This will enable us to present an overview of the proteins in human cerebrospinal fluid. The comparison of 2-D gels will help us to analyze the normal protein variability in healthy persons and specific protein variations in patients with different neurolo gical diseases (e.g., morbus Alzheimer, chorea Huntington). However, it is not possible to carry out 2-D gel electrophoresis directly with human cereb rospinal fluid due to the high amount of salts, sugars and lipids present. In addition, the total amount of protein is only as high as 0.3-0.7 mu g/mu L. Therefore, concentration and desalting steps using precipitation and ul trafiltration are necessary. To date we have been able to identify more tha n 65 spots from 2-D gels using matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization- mass spectrometry and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry.