Proteotyping of the parainfluenza virus with high-resolution mass spectrometry.

Parainfluenza viruses (PIVs) are one of the most common causes of respiratory tract infections in children and can be life-threatening when the airway becomes obstructed. Infection results in a spectrum of respiratory disease symptoms that makes diagnosis difficult. A new proteotyping approach employing high-resolution mass spectrometry is shown to be able to distinguish common human serotypes of the PIV from the perspective of all surface and internal viral proteins. The detection of signature peptides, conserved in sequence and unique in mass, within the spectra of these protein or whole virus digests enables the parainfluenza virus to be identified and typed and for it to be distinguished from the influenza virus. Given that the approach is more rapid and direct than conventional reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and that it can be implemented with high sample throughout at a comparable sensitivity, it affords an effective new means with which to characterize the virus at the molecular level.