Global Identification of Protein Post-translational Modifications in a Single-Pass Database Search

Bottom-up proteomics database search algorithms used for peptide identification cannot comprehensively identify post-translational modifications (PTMs) in a single-pass because of high false discovery rates (FDRs). A new approach to database searching enables global PTM (G-PTM) identification by exclusively looking for curated PTMs, thereby avoiding the FDR penalty experienced during conventional variable modification searches. We identified over 2200 unique, high-confidence modified peptides comprising 26 different PTM types in a single-pass database search.