Skip to main content
Protein Science : A Publication of the Protein Society logoLink to Protein Science : A Publication of the Protein Society
. 1994 Aug;3(8):1347–1350. doi: 10.1002/pro.5560030822

Protein identification in DNA databases by peptide mass fingerprinting.

P James 1, M Quadroni 1, E Carafoli 1, G Gonnet 1
PMCID: PMC2142930  PMID: 7987229

Abstract

Proteins can be identified using a set of peptide fragment weights produced by a specific digestion to search a protein database in which sequences have been replaced by fragment weights calculated for various cleavage methods. We present a method using multidimensional searches that greatly increases the confidence level for identification, allowing DNA sequence databases to be examined. This method provides a link between 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis protein databases and genome sequencing projects. Moreover, the increased confidence level allows unknown proteins to be matched to expressed sequence tags, potentially eliminating the need to obtain sequence information for cloning. Database searching from a mass profile is offered as a free service by an automatic server at the ETH, Zürich. For information, send an electronic message to the address cbrg/inf.ethz.ch with the line: help mass search, or help all.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (379.2 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Appel R. D., Hochstrasser D. F., Funk M., Vargas J. R., Pellegrini C., Muller A. F., Scherrer J. R. The MELANIE project: from a biopsy to automatic protein map interpretation by computer. Electrophoresis. 1991 Oct;12(10):722–735. doi: 10.1002/elps.1150121006. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Cash P. The application of two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis to medical microbiology: molecular epidemiology of viruses and bacteria. Electrophoresis. 1991 Jul-Aug;12(7-8):592–604. doi: 10.1002/elps.1150120721. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Henzel W. J., Billeci T. M., Stults J. T., Wong S. C., Grimley C., Watanabe C. Identifying proteins from two-dimensional gels by molecular mass searching of peptide fragments in protein sequence databases. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1993 Jun 1;90(11):5011–5015. doi: 10.1073/pnas.90.11.5011. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Kovarova H., Stulik J., Macela A., Lefkovits I., Skrabkova Z. Using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis to study immune response against intracellular bacterial infection. Electrophoresis. 1992 Sep-Oct;13(9-10):741–742. doi: 10.1002/elps.11501301160. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Pappin D. J., Hojrup P., Bleasby A. J. Rapid identification of proteins by peptide-mass fingerprinting. Curr Biol. 1993 Jun 1;3(6):327–332. doi: 10.1016/0960-9822(93)90195-t. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Praxmayer C., Murach K. F., Baumgartner B., Aberger F., Schlegel E., Illmensee K. Protein synthesis in murine organs during postimplantation development detected by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Electrophoresis. 1992 Sep-Oct;13(9-10):720–722. doi: 10.1002/elps.11501301153. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Taylor J., Anderson N. L., Scandora A. E., Jr, Willard K. E., Anderson N. G. Design and implementation of a prototype Human Protein Index. Clin Chem. 1982 Apr;28(4 Pt 2):861–866. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Protein Science : A Publication of the Protein Society are provided here courtesy of The Protein Society

RESOURCES