A Systematic Bioinformatics Approach to Identify High Quality Mass Spectrometry Data and Functionally Annotate Proteins and Proteomes.

In the past decade, proteomics and mass spectrometry have taken tremendous strides forward, particularly in the life sciences, spurred on by rapid advances in technology resulting in generation and conglomeration of vast amounts of data. Though this has led to tremendous advancements in biology, the interpretation of the data poses serious challenges for many practitioners due to the immense size and complexity of the data. Furthermore, the lack of annotation means that a potential gold mine of relevant biological information may be hiding within this data.

De Novo Peptide Sequencing: Deep Mining of High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry Data.

High resolution mass spectrometry has revolutionized proteomics over the past decade, resulting in tremendous amounts of data in the form of mass spectra, being generated in a relatively short span of time. The mining of this spectral data for analysis and interpretation though has lagged behind such that potentially valuable data is being overlooked because it does not fit into the mold of traditional database searching methodologies. Although the analysis of spectra by de novo sequences removes such biases and has been available for a long period of time, its uptake has been slow or almost nonexistent within the scientific community.

Unlocking the puzzling biology of the black Périgord truffle Tuber melanosporum.

The black Périgord truffle (Tuber melanosporum Vittad.) is a highly prized food today, with its unique scent (i.e.