iPE-MMR: An integrated approach to accurately assign monoisotopic precursor masses to tandem mass spectrometric data

Accurate assignment of monoisotopic precursor masses to tandem mass spectrometric (MS/MS) data is a fundamental and critically important step for successful peptide identifications in mass spectrometry based proteomics. Here we describe an integrated approach that combines three previously reported methods of treating MS/MS data for precursor mass refinement. This combined method, “integrated Post-Experiment Monoisotopic Mass Refinement” (iPE-MMR), integrates steps: 1) generation of refined MS/MS data by DeconMSn; 2) additional refinement of the resultant MS/MS data by a modified version of PE-MMR; 3) elimination of systematic errors of precursor masses using DtaRefinery. iPE-MMR is the first method that utilizes all MS information from multiple MS scans of a precursor ion including multiple charge states, in an MS scan, to determine precursor mass. By combining these methods, iPE-MMR increases sensitivity in peptide identification and provides increased accuracy when applied to complex high-throughput proteomics data.