MetaPep: A core peptide database for faster human gut metaproteomics database searches

Metaproteomics has increasingly been applied to study functional changes in the human gut microbiome. And peptide identification is an important step in metaproteomics research. However, the large search space in metaproteomics studies causes significant challenges for peptide identification. Here, we constructed MetaPep, a core peptide database (including both collections of peptide sequences and tandem MS spectra) greatly accelerating the peptide identifications. Raw files from fifteen metaproteomics projects were re-analyzed and the identified peptide-spectrum matches (PSMs) were used to construct the MetaPep database. The constructed MetaPep database achieved rapid and accurate identification of peptides for human gut metaproteomics.