A mass spectrometer can be used to identify a protein only if peptides or proteins with the same sequence are already in a database.

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A mass spectrometer can be used to identify a protein by breaking it down into its component peptides and analyzing their masses. These masses can then be compared to a database of known peptides or proteins with the same sequence. Therefore, the identification of a protein by a mass spectrometer relies on the existence of a database with matching sequences.

A Mass Spectrometer Can Be Used to Identify a Protein