Common Repository of FBS Proteins (cRFP) To Be Added to a Search Database for Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Cell Secretome

Abstract

We propose to use cRFP (common Repository of FBS Proteins) in the MS (mass spectrometry) raw data search of cell secretomes. cRFP is a small supplementary sequence list of highly abundant fetal bovine serum proteins added to the reference database in use. The aim behind using cRFP is to prevent the contaminant FBS proteins from being misidentified as other proteins in the reference database, just as we would use cRAP (common Repository of Adventitious Proteins) to prevent contaminant proteins present either by accident or through unavoidable contacts from being misidentified as other proteins. We expect it to be widely used in experiments where the proteins are obtained from serum-free media after thorough washing of the cells, or from a complex media such as SILAC, or from extracellular vesicles directly.