[Comparison for applicability of different trilinear decomposition algorithms to liquid chromatography-mass...

The applicability of different trilinear decomposition algorithm to LC-MS data measured from multiple samples is discussed in this paper. An actual LC-MS data set contained a low abundance peptide was adopted to make a test for these algorithms. The bilinear method was not able to handle this type of low abundance situations, and made a mathematical separation as expected. It is found out that the famous trilinear decomposition algorithm could not be used in the LC-MS data directly. The most probable reason is the sparsity property of the pure MS spectra, which means they have positive response values at some m/z coordinates where the ions emerged and zero values elsewhere. A novel algorithm named NNATLD (non-negative alternating has been designed by the present authors to make an effective trilinear decomposition for the three-way data set constructed by LC-MS data. The new algorithm adapts the property of MS spectra, saves the computing resources, and converges fast.