Trends in metal-binding and metalloprotein analysis

This review describes recent tendencies for metal-binding and metalloprotein analysis, emphasizing metal quantification in proteins through X-ray, atomic absorption, mass spectrometric techniques, and others. Hyphenated techniques such as capillary electrophoresis–synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence (CE–SRXRF), laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA–ICP-MS), matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation–time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI–TOF-MS), etc. are also presented. As protein separation techniques electrophoresis (mainly sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, SDS-PAGE), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) are indicated, due to their inherent sensitivity, resolution and/or easy implementation. Latest challenges in metallomics are also commented.