Protein inference: a review.

Assembling peptides identified from tandem mass spectra into a list of proteins, referred to as protein inference, is a critical step in proteomics research. Due to the existence of degenerate peptides and 'one-hit wonders', it is very difficult to determine which proteins are present in the sample. In this paper, we review existing protein inference methods and classify them according to the source of peptide identifications and the principle of algorithms. It is hoped that the readers will gain a good understanding of the current development in this field after reading this review and come up with new protein inference algorithms.