Envelope: interactive software for modeling and fitting complex isotope distributions

Background: An important aspect of proteomic mass spectrometry involves quantifying and interpreting the isotope distributions arising from mixtures of macromolecules with different isotope labeling patterns. These patterns can be quite complex, in particular with in vivo metabolic labeling experiments producing fractional atomic labeling or fractional residue labeling of peptides or other macromolecules. In general, it can be difficult to distinguish the contributions of species with different labeling patterns to an experimental spectrum and difficult to calculate a theoretical isotope distribution to fit such data. There is a need for interactive and user-friendly software that can calculate and fit the entire isotope distribution of a complex mixture while comparing these calculations with experimental data and extracting the contributions from the differently labeled species. Results: Envelope has been developed to be user-friendly while still being as flexible and powerful as po...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Michael T. Sykes, James R. Williamson
• Keywords: BMCBI 2008, Envelope, Fractional Residue Labeling, Isotope Distributions