About the Authors

Justin D. Blethrow

Affiliation Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Chao Tang

Affiliation XProteo Inc, New York, New York, United States of America

Changhui Deng

Affiliation Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Andrew N. Krutchinsky

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: krutcha@picasso.ucsf.edu

Affiliation Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors of the article, except AK, have no competing financial interests. AK declares a competing financial interest. ThermoElectron and Perkin Elmer license the rights to produce some parts of the MALDI interfaces for vMALDI-IT and prOTOF mass spectrometers. AK is a co-author of several patents covering these parts.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AK. Performed the experiments: AK JB. Analyzed the data: AK JB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AK JB CD. Wrote the paper: AK JB. Other: Produced XProteo search engine for identification of proteins: CT.