From Prohormones to Neuropeptides: Mass Spectrometric and Bioinformatic Approaches

Abstract

To test the predictive models on a larger dataset, another organism was studied. The genome of the western honey bee, Apis mellifera, is being sequenced. After deducing the neuropeptide genes through bioinformatic and mass spectrometric approaches, the neuropeptides are predicted with the Aplysia-based algorithms. To verify all predictions, the peptide sequences are confirmed by electrospray quadrupole mass spectrometry (ESI-Q) TOF-MS. Employing information from additional species will help to test our current prediction schemes and develop more accurate algorithms.