What does the semicolon notation mean in proteomics analysis

Question

[Bertalan_Takacs]

Hi!

I usually work with genomics and transcriptomics data and have no experience with proteomics analysis. For the RNA-seq samples I am analyzing right now, there is proteomics analysis available, where they provide the list of significantly changing proteins. My job is to search for these changes on transcriptomics level. My question is, what does this semicolon notation mean in protemoics?

See the image attached. Does this mean, that the AURKA;AURKB complex has significantly changed? Or that this protein is either AURKA or AURKB but can't be properly identified?

Answer 1

[ATpoint]

In datasets I've seen it means that the peptide cannot uniquely be mapped to a single protein but multimaps between the indicated proteins. Remember that in proteomics you first chop down the protein into peptides by enzymatic digestion (e.g. trypsin) so you do not measure the full protein sequence but peptides, and identical domains between related proteins can then cause multimapping.

[Bertalan_Takacs]

This makes sense, thank you!