Challenges and opportunities in mass spectrometric analysis of proteins from dried blood spots.

Dried blood spots (DBS) have been used as a clinical sample format for over 50 years, and have been analyzed for small molecules and metabolites by mass spectrometry (MS) since the early 1990s. In the meantime, MS has become the tool of choice in proteomics. Despite this obvious avenue of scientific investigation, the marriage of MS and DBS protein analysis has been comparatively recent. DBS are a potentially rich source of protein biomarkers that remain to be exploited. This article focuses on the progress made in the mass spectrometric analysis of proteins from DBS and discusses the benefits and challenges facing this emerging field.