Patent Document ID: 7555393
Application ID: 11809703
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for generating a compound probability that product ion spectral data matches a candidate sequence in a sequence database by random, the product ion spectral data having been generated by a non-ergodic process as implemented in a mass spectrometer instrument, comprising: (a) generating a first product ion spectral data from one or more biological samples using the mass spectrometer instrument; wherein the steps following steps are preformed by a computer; (b) preprocessing the first product ion spectral data; (c) determining product ion abundance values and product ion mass-to-charge ratio values for each of a plurality of peaks from the pre-processed first product ion spectral data; (d) utilizing the product ion abundance values to determine an intensity probability distribution, the intensity probability distribution representing a first probability that the product ion spectral data was generated at random; (e) utilizing the mass-to-charge ratio values of the product ions to determine a fragment probability distribution, the fragment probability distribution representing a second probability that the product ion spectral data was generated at random; (f) determining the compound probability based on the intensity probability distribution and the fragment probability distribution, the probability representing a probability that the generated product ion spectral data matches a candidate sequence in the sequence database at random; and (g) displaying to a user, the candidate sequence which best matches the generated first product ion spectral data based on the determined compound probability.