Proteomics Standards Initiative's ProForma 2.0: Unifying the Encoding of Proteoforms and Peptidoforms

It is important for the proteomics community to have a standardizedmanner to represent all possible variations of a protein or peptide primary sequence,including natural, chemically induced, and artifactual modifications. The HumanProteome Organization Proteomics Standards Initiative in collaboration with severalmembers of the Consortium for Top-Down Proteomics (CTDP) has developed astandard notation called ProForma 2.0, which is a substantial extension of the originalProForma notation developed by the CTDP. ProForma 2.0 aims to unify therepresentation of proteoforms and peptidoforms. ProForma 2.0 supports use casesneeded for bottom-up and middle-/top-down proteomics approaches and allows theencoding of highly modified proteins and peptides using a human- and machine-readable string. ProForma 2.0 can be used to represent protein modifications in a specified or ambiguous location, designated bymass shifts, chemical formulas, or controlled vocabulary terms, including cross-links (natural and chemical) and atomic isotopes.Notational conventions are based on public controlled vocabularies and ontologies. The most up-to-date full specification documentand information about software implementations are available athttp://psidev.info/proforma.