Patent ID: 6940065

Claim:
A method for analyzing a sample containing biomolecules comprising the steps of providing a plurality of sample portions of a sample containing biomolecules; acquiring one or more mass spectra of at least one of the sample portions; analyzing the one or more mass spectra using at least one of an expression dependent based analysis, and a search results based analysis; selecting one or more mass-to-charge ratio ranges based on the analysis of at least one of the expression dependent based analysis and the search results based analysis of the one or more mass spectra; acquiring a fragmentation spectrum of at least one of the sample portions at one or more of the selected one or more mass-to-charge ratio ranges; comparing the fragmentation spectrum of at least one of the selected one or more mass-to-charge ratio ranges to a database of known or predicted fragmentation mass spectra; and determining whether a biomolecule is present in the sample based on the comparison.