A recently developed concentration and purification method (Gevaert, K., Demol, H., Puype, M., Broekaert, D., De Boeck, S., Houthaeve, T., Vandekerckhove, J., 1997. Electrophoresis 18, 2950–2960) for the analysis of diluted peptide samples by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) is compared with conventional MALDI sample preparation methods. In the procedure developed, reverse-phase chromatographic beads are added to diluted peptide solutions and act as a peptide-trapping device. Peptides concentrated on the added beads are subsequently harvested, transferred to the MALDI-target disc and efficiently on target desorbed from the beads in a very small volume of an organic–aqueous mixture containing the aromatic MALDI-matrix components. Using this procedure, we show that it is possible to use the totality of in gel protein digests without negative interference of buffers and chaotropes that may be present in the digestion mixture. This method links MALDI-MS peptide analysis more efficiently to 2-D gel electrophoresis in the concept of proteome analysis. The procedure is illustrated by the identification of a class of proteins, which translocate to the actin cytoskeleton of human platelets upon thrombin stimulation.