Chemometrics in MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry: More accurate and economical SNP genotyping

CIGENE uses matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) for genotyping of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) (Figure 1). This methodology is expensive, but the cost per sample is highly reduced if a large number of SNPs can be analyzed simultaneously. The accuracy of the available software is too poor for analyzing experiments with a large number of SNPs. We therefore aim at developing a MATLAB toolbox where a chemometric approach for preprocessing the MALDI-TOF spectra and estimate the SNP genotype is taken.