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oai:drops-oai.dagstuhl.de:4230 2024-03-06T10:29:22Z ddc:004 open_access

Efficient Interpretation of Tandem Mass Tags in Top-Down Proteomics Hildebrandt, Anna Katharina Althaus, Ernst Lenhof, Hans-Peter Hung, Chien-Wen Tholey, Andreas Hildebrandt, Andreas Mass spectrometry TMT labeling Top-down Proteomics Mass spectrometry is the major analytical tool for the identification and quantification of proteins in biological samples. In so-called top-down proteomics, separation and mass spectrometric analysis is performed at the level of intact proteins, without preparatory digestion steps. It has been shown that the tandem mass tag (TMT) labeling technology, which is often used for quantification based on digested proteins (bottom-up studies), can be applied in top-down proteomics as well. This, however, leads to a complex interpretation problem, where we need to annotate measured peaks with their respective generating protein, the number of charges, and the a priori unknown number of TMT-groups attached to this protein. In this work, we give an algorithm for the efficient enumeration of all valid annotations that fulfill available experimental constraints. Applying the algorithm to real-world data, we show that the annotation problem can indeed be efficiently solved. However, our experiments also demonstrate that reliable annotation in complex mixtures requires at least partial sequence information and high mass accuracy and resolution to go beyond the proof-of-concept stage. Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik Anna Katharina Hildebrandt and Ernst Althaus and Hans-Peter Lenhof and Chien-Wen Hung and Andreas Tholey and Andreas Hildebrandt 2013 Is Part Of OASIcs, Volume 34, German Conference on Bioinformatics 2013 InProceedings Text doc-type:ResearchArticle publishedVersion application/pdf doi:10.4230/OASIcs.GCB.2013.56 urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-42304 https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.GCB.2013.56 eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode