Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Comprehensive Workflow of Mass Spectrometry-based Shotgun Proteomics of Tissue Samples
14:51

Comprehensive Workflow of Mass Spectrometry-based Shotgun Proteomics of Tissue Samples

Published on: November 13, 2021

A HUPO test sample study reveals common problems in mass spectrometry-based proteomics

Alexander W Bell1, Eric W Deutsch, Catherine E Au

  • 1Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Nature Methods
|May 19, 2009
PubMed

We performed a test sample study to try to identify errors leading to irreproducibility, including incompleteness of peptide sampling, in liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based proteomics. We distributed an equimolar test sample, comprising 20 highly purified recombinant human proteins, to 27 laboratories. Each protein contained one or more unique tryptic peptides of 1,250 Da to test for ion selection and sampling in the mass spectrometer. Of the 27 labs, members of only 7 labs initially reported all 20 proteins correctly, and members of only 1 lab reported all tryptic peptides of 1,250 Da. Centralized analysis of the raw data, however, revealed that all 20 proteins and most of the 1,250 Da peptides had been detected in all 27 labs. Our centralized analysis determined missed identifications (false negatives), environmental contamination, database matching and curation of protein identifications as sources of problems. Improved search engines and databases are needed for mass spectrometry-based proteomics.

More Related Videos

Navigating the Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomic Data Using Free Computational Tools07:01

Navigating the Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomic Data Using Free Computational Tools

Published on: August 19, 2025

A Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX-MS) Platform for Investigating Peptide Biosynthetic Enzymes11:32

A Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX-MS) Platform for Investigating Peptide Biosynthetic Enzymes

Published on: May 4, 2020

Related Concept Videos

Peptide Identification Using Tandem Mass Spectrometry01:33

Peptide Identification Using Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Tandem mass spectrometry, also known as MS/MS or MS2, is an analytical technique that employs two mass analyzers. Essentially it is a series of mass spectrometers that helps isolate a particular biomolecule and then helps study its chemical properties.
This technique helps gather information regarding the protein from which the peptide was obtained and to study the peptides’ amino acid sequence. Identifying peptides from a complex mixture is an important component of the growing field of...
Mass Spectrometry: Complex Analysis01:21

Mass Spectrometry: Complex Analysis

Mass spectrometry is an important technique for the identification of pure compounds. However, it has some limitations for the analysis of complex mixtures, often due to excessive fragmentation making the spectrum too complicated to decipher. Mass spectrometry can be combined with suitable separation methods in sequence, forming hyphenated methods, which are useful in the analysis of complex mixtures.
GC–MS is a powerful hyphenated method commonly used in forensics and environmental...
High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS)01:15

High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS)

The resolution of a mass spectrometer depends on the efficiency of separating ions with different ion masses. The mass of an atom is approximated to the sum of the masses of protons and neutrons inside, considering the masses of protons and neutrons as equal. However, the masses of the proton (1.6726 × 10−24 g) and neutron (1.6749 × 10−24 g) are not truly equal. There is a minor error in the expression of atomic masses relative to the simplest atom of hydrogen. For example, the mass of helium...
Proteomics01:33

Proteomics

A proteome is the entire set of proteins that a cell type produces. We can study proteomes using the knowledge of genomes because genes code for mRNAs, and the mRNAs encode proteins. Although mRNA analysis is a step in the right direction, not all mRNAs are translated into proteins.
Proteomics is the study of proteomes' function. It involves the large-scale systematic study of the proteome to denote the protein complement expressed by a genome. Scientist Mark Wilkins coined the term proteomics...