Using Custom Protein Annotations

2024-03-28

Premium Feature — Available with all Premium Editions of LabKey Server. Learn more or contact LabKey.

LabKey Server lets you upload custom lists of proteins. In addition to protein identifiers, you can upload any other data types you wish. For example, you might create a custom list of proteins and quantitation data from published results. Once your list is loaded into the server, you can pull it into MS2 pages as a separate column. This allows you to view, sort, and filter the data.

Uploading Custom Protein Annotations

To add custom protein annotations:

  • Navigate to the main page of an MS2 folder.
  • Select (Admin) > Manage Custom Protein Lists.
  • If you want to define your protein list at the project-wide level, click annotations in the project; otherwise your protein list will only be loaded in the current folder.
  • Click the Import Custom Protein List button.
You need to upload the annotations in a tab-separated format (TSV). You can include additional values associated with each protein, or just upload a list of proteins.

The first line of the file must be the column headings. The value in the first column must be the name that refers to the protein, based on the type that you select. For example, if you choose IPI as the type, the first column must be the IPI number (without version information). Each protein must be on a separate line.

An easy way to copy a TSV to the clipboard is to use Excel or another spreadsheet program to enter your data, select all the cells, and copy it. You can then paste into the textbox provided.

You can download a sample ProteinAnnotationSet.tsv file for an example of what a file should look like.

Click Submit. Assuming that the upload was successful, you'll be shown the list of all the custom annotation sets.

Note: Upload sets that are loaded directly into a project are visible in all subfolders within that project. If a set within the subfolder has the same name, it masks the set in the project.

Viewing Your Annotations

Click on the name of the set to view its contents. You'll see a grid with all of the data that you uploaded.

To see which the proteins in your custom set match up with a protein that the server has already loaded from a FASTA or Uniprot file, click on the "Show with matching proteins loaded into this server" link.

Using Your Annotations

You can add your custom annotations to many of the MS2 pages. To see them while viewing a MS2 run:

  • Select queryPeptidesView from the Select a saved view dropdown.
  • Select (Grid Views) > Customize Grid.
  • Find and expand the node for your custom annotation set as follows:
    • If you want to use the search engine-assigned protein, expand the "Search Engine Protein > Custom Annotations > Custom List" node.
    • For a ProteinProphet assigned protein, expand the "Protein Prophet Data > Protein Group > First Protein > Custom Annotations > Custom Lists" node.
  • Lookup String is the name you used for the protein in your uploaded file.
  • Select the properties you want to add to the grid, and click Save.
  • They will then show up in the grid.
You can also add your custom annotations to other views using (Grid Views) > Customize Grid.
  • When viewing a single MS2 run under the queryProteinGroupView grouping, expand the "Proteins > Protein > Custom Annotations" node.
  • When viewing Protein Search results, in the list of protein groups expand the "First Protein > Custom Annotations" node.
  • In the Compare Runs query view, expand the "Protein > Custom Annotations" node.

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