masstodon: A Tool for Assigning Peaks and Modeling Electron Transfer Reactions in Top-Down Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Top-down mass spectrometry methods are becoming continuously more popular in the effort to describe the proteome. They rely on the fragmentation of intact protein ions inside the mass spectrometer. Among the existing fragmentation methods, electron transfer dissociation is known for its precision and wide coverage of different cleavage sites. However, several side reactions can occur under electron transfer dissociation (ETD) conditions, including nondissociative electron transfer and proton transfer reaction. Evaluating their extent can provide more insight into reaction kinetics as well as instrument operation. Furthermore, preferential formation of certain reaction products can reveal important structural information. To the best of our knowledge, there are currently no tools capable of tracing and analyzing the products of these reactions in a systematic way. In this Article, we present in detail masstodon: a computer program for assigning peaks and interpreting mass spectra. Besides being a general purpose tool, masstodon also offers the possibility to trace the products of reactions occurring under ETD conditions and provides insights into the parameters driving them. It is available free of charge under the GNU AGPL V3 public license.