SearchXLinks. A Program for the Identification of Disulfide Bonds in Proteins from Mass Spectra

We present the computer program SearchXLinks that
analyzes mass spectra with the aim of identifying disulfide
bonds and other modifications in proteins of known amino
acid sequence. Disulfide bonds can be intra- or intermolecular. To decrease the number of false positives, the
analysis of in-source decay and tandem mass spectra are
coupled into the program. The steps taken during a
SearchXLinks run are outlined, and the computational
costs are discussed. The application of the program is
illustrated by the analysis of data from recent studies on
bovine ribonuclease A and bovine serum albumin. The
software can be used free of charge on the Internet at
http://www.searchxlinks.de.