Using PepExplorer to Filter and Organize De Novo Peptide Sequencing Results.

PepExplorer aids in the biological interpretation of de novo sequencing results; this is accomplished by assembling a list of homolog proteins obtained by aligning results from widely adopted de novo sequencing tools against a target-decoy sequence database. Our tool relies on pattern recognition to ensure that the results satisfy a user-given false-discovery rate (FDR). For this, it employs a radial basis function neural network that considers the precursor charge states, de novo sequencing scores, the peptide lengths, and alignment scores. PepExplorer is recommended for studies addressing organisms with no genomic sequence available. PepExplorer is integrated into the PatternLab for proteomics environment, which makes available various tools for downstream data analysis, including the resources for quantitative and differential proteomics.

Effectively addressing complex proteomic search spaces with peptide spectrum matching.

SUMMARY: Protein identification by mass spectrometry is commonly accomplished using a peptide sequence matching search algorithm, whose sensitivity varies inversely with the size of the sequence database and the number of post-translational modifications considered. We present the Spectrum Identification Machine, a peptide sequence matching tool that capitalizes on the high-intensity b1-fragment ion of tandem mass spectra of peptides coupled in solution with phenylisotiocyanate to confidently sequence the first amino acid and ultimately reduce the search space. We demonstrate that in complex search spaces, a gain of some 120% in sensitivity can be achieved. AVAILABILITY: All data generated and the software are freely available for academic use at http://proteomics.fiocruz.br/software/sim. CONTACT: paulo@pcarvalho.com SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.