It seems like a reasonable thing to test.  I am not sure of the ultimate
result but maybe you'll be able to make a few more identifications this
way.  Let me know what happens if you end up trying that.

-David

On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 5:05 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> Thanks for your reply, that's very helpful.
>
> I've now tried including an equal number of decoys (reversed) in my
> database, processing the same data through peptide prophet, iprophet and
> protein prophet. My number of identified proteins has gone down, but the
> PSMs are much more believable (judging from the spectra).
>
> As an aside - if I were to play with the proportion of decoys in the
> database, (reducing the number to say 25% of the total database, rather
> than 50%), in your experience would this reduction in the search space be
> likely to have much of an effect on PSM / protein IDs?
>
> Thanks again,
> Pete
>
>
> On Tuesday, 5 June 2018 16:26:37 UTC-7, David Shteynberg wrote:
>>
>> Hello Pete,
>>
>> Use of decoys in the X!Tandem workflow is not strictly required but it is
>> helpful.  X!Tandem is one of a handful of search engines for which there
>> exists a parametric mixture model for PSM-level validation.  In my
>> experience, using the parametric models may not always give you the best
>> results in terms of validation, and the lack of decoys precludes the
>> ability to compute decoy-based error rates (FDR).  In this case you have to
>> only the FDR as estimated by the PeptideProphet model, and you cannot
>> compare this FDR to decoy-based estimates.  The best results are usually
>> obtained by using a database that includes some proportion of decoys.  You
>> can then validate the search results using PeptideProphet's semi-supervised
>> semi-parametric models, which tend to estimate more accurate error rates.
>> However you decide to search your data, I also suggest you also include
>> iProphet in your validation analysis for peptide-level validation.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -David
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 12:47 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Please can someone advise - is it recommended to include decoys in my
>>> database when using X! for searches then peptide/protein prophet in TPP?
>>>
>>>
>>> As I understand, X! recommends not including decoys in searches (when
>>> used standalone) – however when I analyse X! identified peptides using
>>> peptide/protein prophet, I assume that I will need decoy matches to help
>>> pin down the correct distribution?
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Pete
>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "spctools-discuss" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>>> an email to [email protected].
>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
>>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/spctools-discuss.
>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>>
>>
>> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "spctools-discuss" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to [email protected].
> To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/spctools-discuss.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"spctools-discuss" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/spctools-discuss.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Reply via email to