Introduction

This Letter presents the R-package implementation of the recently introduced polynomial method for calculating the aggregated isotopic distribution called BRAIN (Baffling Recursive Algorithm for Isotopic distributioN calculations). The algorithm is simple, easy to understand, highly accurate, fast, and memory-efficient. The method is based on the application of the Newton-Girard theorem and Viète's formulae to the polynomial coding of different aggregated isotopic variants. As a result, an elegant recursive equation is obtained for computing the occurrence probabilities of consecutive aggregated isotopic peaks. Additionally, the algorithm also allows calculating the center-masses of the aggregated isotopic variants. We propose an implementation which is suitable for high-throughput processing and easily customizable for application in different areas of mass spectral data analyses. A case study demonstrates how the R-package can be applied in the context of protein research, but the software can be also used for calculating the isotopic distribution in the context of lipidomics, metabolomics, glycoscience, or even space exploration. More materials, i.e., reference manual, vignette, and the package itself are available at Bioconductor online (http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/BRAIN.html).

Publications

  1. BRAIN: a universal tool for high-throughput calculations of the isotopic distribution for mass spectrometry.
    Cite this
    Dittwald P, Claesen J, Burzykowski T, Valkenborg D, Gambin A, 2013-02-01 - Analytical chemistry

Credits

  1. Piotr Dittwald
    Developer

  2. Jürgen Claesen
    Developer

  3. Tomasz Burzykowski
    Developer

  4. Dirk Valkenborg
    Developer

  5. Anna Gambin
    Investigator

Community Ratings

UsabilityEfficiencyReliabilityRated By
0 user
Sign in to rate
Summary
AccessionBT006523
Tool TypeApplication
Category
PlatformsLinux/Unix
TechnologiesR
User InterfaceTerminal Command Line
Download Count0
Submitted ByAnna Gambin