ProMass 5.0 for Xcalibur Release! What’s New?

Biomolecular research is continuously expanding with increased emphasis on the research and development of new modalities in biopharmaceutical and diagnostic applications. Mass spectrometry plays a pivotal role in this research. Novatia’s proprietary ProMass software allows for completely automated charge deconvolution of oligonucleotides and proteins in electrospray ionization mass spectral data. The unique web-based reporting features of ProMass enable rapid and easy-to-use sharing of results with colleagues and collaborators. Novatia is continuously improving ProMass to meet this demand and expand ProMass capabilities to enable and accelerate biomolecular research. In this announcement, we are excited to release ProMass 5 for Xcalibur! We are also making important updates to our ProMass support mechanisms to better enable our users for future success.

1. Promass 5.0 for Xcalibur Released!

There are many new enhancements in ProMass 5.0. Some of the new and exciting features are highlighted below:

New OligoSeq oligo sequence confirmation tool (ProMass HR only)

New Oligo Sequence Confirmation accessed from the ProMass Tools Menu

The OligoSeq tool in ProMass HR is used to confirm oligonucleotide sequences using high resolution MS/MS or CID data. Given an input oligo sequence and a deisotoped MS fragmentation spectrum, OligoSeq can match the predicted zero-charged fragments against a deisotoped spectrum and produce an Excel sequence coverage report and chart as shown below.

The example shows the detailed Excel report generated by OligoSeq. The report shows the calculated a-B, a, b, c, d, w, x, y, and z ions for the input oligo sequence. The experimentally observed ions (exp), error in ppm (err), and intensities (int) are also shown for each series of ions.

The sequence confirmation chart is a stack plot showing the summed intensities of fragments originating from either the 3′ or the 5′ end.

In ProMass HR, it is now possible to deisotope and report monoisotopic OR average mass

Updated ProMass On-line Help to better support HR and other new features, including PDF User Guide

The ProMass Help built into the ProMass UI has been updated for ProMass 5.0 with new features!

There is a PDF User Guide of ProMass Help that is included in the ProMass download. You can view the help pages via PDF and print out the pages. The location to find this PDF is in the following directory:

New mass peak detection algorithm for ZNova deconvolutions more accurately labels peaks and rejects unresolved shoulders and noise peaks.
Optional centroid output feature in ZNova deconvolutions now reports the peak area of each deconvoluted mass instead of intensity for more accurate relative quantitation of ProMass results.
For ProMass HR deisotoping applications, the user may apply a mass bias correction factor (in ppm) to a data set. This allows a user to run a known standard, determine the mass bias, and then apply the correction factor to subsequent data sets.
The ability to import a CSV or text file was added to better support manual processing with Thermo FreeStyle.
For high resolution data, a new feature was added to automatically optimize the mass tolerance in the Xcalibur processing method so that scans are added appropriately without distorting the raw data, as described in this tech article.
Data station enhancements:
- ProMass now supports Excel reporting with MS Office 365
- Windows Remote Desktop processing is now supported with one concurrent user
A complete list of changes is listed on the ProMass for Xcalibur release notes page.

2. ProMass Support Outlined

Detailed information about ProMass Support can be found here.

3. End of ProMass for Xcalibur 3.0 Support

With the introduction of ProMass 5 for Xcalibur, we are ending support for ProMass 3.0 for Xcalibur. Please access the ProMass Support Overview page for additional details. If you are a ProMass 3 or ProMass 4 user, you can purchase an upgrade at a cost which is much lower than purchasing a new license. To purchase an upgrade of the most recent ProMass release, click here.