LIMPIC: a computational method for the separation of protein MALDI-TOF-MS signals from noise

摘要

BackgroundMass spectrometry protein profiling is a promising tool for biomarker discovery in clinical proteomics. However, the development of a reliable approach for the separation of protein signals from noise is required. In this paper, LIMPIC, a computational method for the detection of protein peaks from linear-mode MALDI-TOF data is proposed. LIMPIC is based on novel techniques for background noise reduction and baseline removal. Peak detection is performed considering the presence of a non-homogeneous noise level in the mass spectrum. A comparison of the peaks collected from multiple spectra is used to classify them on the basis of a detection rate parameter, and hence to separate the protein signals from other disturbances.