MULTIVARIATE EVALUATION OF PEPTIDE-MAPPING USING THE ENTIRE CHROMATOGRAPHIC PROFILE

Peptide mapping is an important analytical technique for quality contr ol of rDNA-derived proteins. The evaluation in peptide mapping is comp licated by variations in the digestion and the chromatographic separat ion. The variation sources in peptide mapping are briefly reviewed. A multivariate evaluation method that can account for the digestion vari ations is presented. The method utilizes the entire chromatographic pr ofile as input data, eliminating the need for peak size and retention time determinations. The influence of chromatographic variations shoul d be reduced by proper pretreatment of the chromatograms, in order to allow classification of protein samples. The method is intended to fac ilitate the evaluation in peptide mapping and is capable of handling n umerous chromatograms in a data set.