Challenges and Opportunities for Biological Mass Spectrometry Core Facilities in the Developing World

Abstract

The developing world is seeing rapid growth in the availability of biological mass spectrometry (MS), particularly through core facilities. As proteomics and metabolomics becomes locally feasible for investigators in these nations, application areas associated with high burden in these nations, such as infectious disease, will see greatly increased research output. This article evaluates the rapid growth of MS in South Africa (currently approaching 20 laboratories) as a model for establishing MS core facilities in other nations of the developing world. Facilities should emphasize new services rather than new instruments. The reduction of the delays associated with reagent and other supply acquisition would benefit both facilities and the users who make use of their services. Instrument maintenance and repair, often mediated by an in-country business for an international vendor, is also likely to operate on a slower schedule than in the wealthiest nations. A key challenge to facilities in the developing world is educating potential facility users in how best to design experiments for proteomics and metabolomics, what reagents are most likely to introduce problematic artifacts, and how to interpret results from the facility. Here, we summarize the experience of 6 different institutions to raise the level of biological MS available to researchers in South Africa.

Keywords: South Africa; capacity development; publication standards; shared instruments.

FIGURE 1

World Health Organization Global Health Estimates of 2015 death statistics for the World Health Organization Africa region. The developing world (here modeled by 47 of the 54 countries on the African continent) is particularly prone to infectious and parasitic diseases. In recent years, however, economic development has caused noncommunicable diseases to increase in these populations.

FIGURE 2

Biological MS core facilities may specialize in a single workflow or into a greater diversity of services. Untargeted experiments typically consume the most instrument time, but they offer both identification and limited quantitation. Profiling experiments offer extremely high sample throughput, but the differential peaks they discern may subsequently be challenging to identify. Targeted quantitation can yield low coefficients of variation for dozens of prespecified peptides or metabolites.

FIGURE 3

The 3 largest cities in South Africa are Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, with 4.4, 3.7, and 3.4 million inhabitants, respectively, in the corresponding municipalities for the 2011 census. All 3 cities are now home to multiple biological MS facilities.