A Data Structure for Rapid Mass Spectral Searching

Abstract

The combination of partitioning and systematic bond disconnection has been used to identify compounds from accurate-mass fragmentation data. This combination is very effective in excluding wrong answers that occur by chance. However, both processes are CPU intensive. This paper describes a novel data structure for representing molecules in a computer readable format that is conducive to very rapid mass spectral searching while still retaining the advantages of partitioning and systematic bond disconnection.