Peptide Fragment Ion Analyser (PFIA): a simple and versatile tool for the interpretation of tandem mass spectrometric data and de novo sequencing of peptides.

The software Peptide Fragment Ion Analyser (PFIA) aids in the analysis and interpretation of tandem mass spectrometric data of peptides. The software package has been designed to facilitate the analysis of product ions derived from acyclic and cyclic peptide natural products that possess unusual amino acid residues and are heavily post-translationally modified. The software consists of two programmes: (a) PFIA-I lists the amino acid compositions and their corresponding product ion types for 'a queried m/z value' (z = +1) and (b) PFIA-II displays fragmentation pattern diagram(s) and lists all sequence-specific product ion types for the protonated adduct of 'a queried sequence'. The unique feature of PFIA-II is its ability to handle cyclic peptides. The two programmes used in combination can prove helpful for deriving peak assignments in the de novo sequencing of novel peptides.