GeneBio and the SIB Launch an Extended Version of Aldente, SIB’s Peptide Mass Fingerprint Tool

Geneva Bioinformatics (GeneBio) SA and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) have announced the release of an enhanced version of Aldente, the peptide mass fingerprint (PMF) tool developed by the SIB’s Proteome Informatics Group.

This extended commercial version available from GeneBio builds upon the existing free version of Aldente accessible from the SIB’s ExPASy server and heavily used by the scientific community since 2002. Aldente is another in a long list of cooperative efforts between the two organizations.
 
One of the strengths of Aldente is to include a mass spectral realignment method in the scoring process. The so called Hough transform as implemented in Aldente is very robust and performs equally well with crowded or poor spectra, allowing also the validation of the presence of a simple mixture of proteins in a spectrum.

Last but not least, the close neighbourhood of and synergies with the Swiss-Prot group enable Aldente to automatically search for post-translationally modified peptides as annotated in Swiss-Prot.

GeneBio’s extended version allows Aldente users, amongst others, to:-          Use the software locally, thus uploading their proprietary sequence databases in a completely secured environment,
-          Perform batch submission,
-          Access their job history together with the possibility to re-submit those jobs,
-          Access results and graphically evaluate them in various levels of detail as well as export them in different formats.
 
According to GeneBio, in the near future this enhanced version of Aldente will work seamlessly with Phenyx allowing users to visualize both MS/MS and PMF results through the same user interface; the combination of the two platforms provides users with a powerful set of tools that meet the needs of life science workers using proteomics software.
 
“We are extremely pleased to once again work with GeneBio in order to bring one of our widely used developments, Aldente this time, to the market,” said Ron D. Appel, Head of the Proteome Informatics Group and SIB cofounder.

“Aldente is already a powerful tool. Making it available in an enhanced version through GeneBio and aligning it with GeneBio’s Phenyx gives researchers access to an integrated platform that can only benefit ongoing life science research.“
 
“The addition of Aldente to the GeneBio product lineup brings both an exceptional platform and enhanced functionality to our users,” said Nasri Nahas, CEO of GeneBio.

“Not only can it stand on its own as an excellent tool, but it also meshes perfectly with our Phenyx offering in order to bring users a tier-one protein identification platform that covers both MS/MS and PMF search functionalities.

This is yet another example of the benefits inherent in mixing the commercial and academic worlds to better fulfill market expectations.”