Methods for De Novo Protein Sequencing

A method for determining an amino acid sequence of a polypeptide, including comprising: contacting a first sample containing the polypeptide with a first protease(e.g., Trypsin) to produce a first set of digested peptide fragments; fragmenting the first set of digested peptide fragments to produce a first set of fragmented peptide ions; determining masses of the first set of fragmented peptide ions; contacting a second sample containing the polypeptide with a second protease (e.g., Tryp-N); fragmenting the second set of digested peptide fragments to produce a second set of fragmented peptide ions; selecting pairs of peptide ions from the first and the second set of fragmented peptide ions that differ in mass by a mass of an arginine amino acid residue or a lysine amino acid residue; assigning an ion type (either N-terminal peptide ion or C-terminal peptide ion) to the selected pairs of the peptide ions from two sets of fragmented peptide ions;selecting a mass ladder of the same-type peptide ions in either set of fragmented peptide ions with incremental mass by the mass of amino acid residue(s), and assembling the identified amino acid residues from the mass ladder to determine the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide of interest.