Absolute quantification and 2 peptides

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Absolute quantification and 2 peptides mvm35  2025-02-26 12:13
 

For a absolute quantification assay of a single protein I ordered in two heavy peptide standards.

Peptide standard 1 quantifies the protein amount as 40 fmol.

Peptide standard 2 quantifies the protein 20 fmol.

Is it common to have a large discrepancy between two peptide standards when they should in theory give near identical values (if everything is perfect)?

 
 
Mike MacCoss responded:  2025-02-26 15:15

Hi, thanks for your question! Without knowing anything about the accuracy or precision of your measurements, or if your standards are well calibrated it is hard to say what the cause is. How well do you know the peptide standard concentrations?

That said, even if they were perfect measurements, you shouldn't expect two peptides for the same protein to necessarily give the same quantities. This paper provides a little context on our perspective. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8976764/

Any two peptides could be spanning different combinations of proteoforms. We definitely don't expect different peptides from the same protein coding gene to give the same results. I always like this figure of different peptides from Tau (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10104800/)

Cheers, Mike