Figure 1.

Schematic representation of the experiment: First, nanodiamonds and salts are mixed with the serum samples. Certain proteins (mostly proteins whose biological function is binding to negatively charged molecules) adhere to the diamonds. Analyzing proteins on the diamond particles reveals that high-abundance proteins were successfully depleted. At this point, loosely binding proteins, the so-called “soft corona”, is still adhered. These proteins can be removed by an additional washing step, which further depletes some proteins.