Peptide-mass fingerprint
In bio-informatics, a peptide-mass fingerprint or peptide-mass map is a mass spectrum of a mixture of peptides that comes from a digested protein being analyzed. The mass spectrum serves as a fingerprint in the sense that it is a pattern that can serve to identify the protein.[1] The method for forming a peptide-mass fingerprint, developed in 1993, consists of isolating a protein, breaking it down into individual peptides, and determining the masses of the peptides through some form of mass spectrometry.[2] Once formed, a peptide-mass fingerprint can be used to search in databases for related protein or even genomic sequences, making it a powerful tool for annotation of protein-coding genes.[3]
One major advantage to mass fingerprinting is that it is significantly faster to carry out than peptide sequencing, yet the results are equally useful.[4] Disadvantages include the need for a single protein for analysis and the requirement that the protein sequence is located, at least with significant homology, in a database. Because the mass of individual peptides is measured in forming a fingerprint, mixtures of different proteins can yield unreliable results. Therefore sample preparation is an important step in the process. Even then, if reliable results are obtained, there must be a matching peptide sequence in the database you are searching in order for the results to be useful.[5]
External Links
Tutorial for database searching
http://www.matrixscience.com/help/pmf_help.html
References
- ^ Mass spectrometry in the biological sciences
- ^ James, P.; Quadroni, M.; Carafoli, E.; Gonnet, G. (1993-08-31). "Protein identification by mass profile fingerprinting". Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 195 (1): 58–64. doi:10.1006/bbrc.1993.2009. ISSN 0006-291X. PMID 8363627.
- ^ Cottrell, J. S. (1994-06-01). "Protein identification by peptide mass fingerprinting". Peptide Research. 7 (3): 115–124. ISSN 1040-5704. PMID 8081066.
- ^ Pappin, D. J.; Hojrup, P.; Bleasby, A. J. (1993-06-01). "Rapid identification of proteins by peptide-mass fingerprinting". Current biology: CB. 3 (6): 327–332. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 15335725.
- ^ Henzel, William J; Watanabe, Colin; Stults, John T (2003-09-01). "Protein identification: the origins of peptide mass fingerprinting". Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. 14 (9): 931–942. doi:10.1016/S1044-0305(03)00214-9.
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