DiagnoTop

DiagnoTop identifies and differentiates bacterial pathogens from top-down proteomics (TDP) data by detecting discriminative proteoform spectral clusters without relying on database searches.

Key Features:

• Database-free identification: Operates without database searches to enable analysis of poorly annotated microbial proteomes.
• Top-down proteomics input: Processes top-down proteomics (TDP) mass spectra and TDP datasets, including enterobacterial TDP datasets.
• Proteoform-focused analysis: Detects species-unique proteoforms and uses them as discriminative signals.
• Discriminative spectral cluster detection: Identifies, lists, and shortlists discriminative spectral clusters and high-quality spectra.
• Differentiation of closely related enterobacteria: Resolves species-level ambiguity among Escherichia coli, Shigella, and Salmonella using discriminative clusters.
• Diagnostic and biomarker potential: Enhances diagnostic power and supports biomarker discovery from TDP-derived proteoform signatures.

Scientific Applications:

• Clinical pathogen identification: Confirming bacterial infections to inform antimicrobial therapy decisions.
• Differentiation of enterobacterial pathogens: Resolving taxonomic ambiguity among Escherichia coli, Shigella, and Salmonella in mass-spectrometry-based analyses.
• Biomarker discovery: Identifying species-specific proteoform signatures from top-down proteomics data.
• Analysis of poorly annotated proteomes: Enabling proteomic studies where reference databases are incomplete or lacking annotations.

Methodology:

Analyzes top-down proteomics (TDP) mass spectra to detect, list, and shortlist discriminative spectral clusters and proteoforms without performing database searches.