The capacity of liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry to identify protein sequences is well known. But the commonly used bioinformatics techniques that match mass spectra to peptide sequences are critically dependent on the availability of sequenced genomes. Even in the post‐genomic era, certain fields, such as venomics, environmental proteomics, and ancient protein analysis, lack sequenced genomes. In other fields, such as archaeology, art and cultural heritage, and especially forensics, the relevant genomes may have been sequenced, but it is not immediately obvious which sequenced genome is the appropriate one to pair with proteomics analysis. De novo peptide identification tools use algorithms to interpret mass spectra without reference to a sequenced genome. In this issue, O'Bryon et al. review de novo methods and their application in venomics, metaproteomics, analysis of protein pharmaceuticals, and forensic proteomics. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pro.3919

液相色谱-质谱法鉴定蛋白质序列的能力是众所周知的。但是，将质谱与肽序列匹配的常用生物信息学技术关​​键取决于测序基因组的可用性。即使在后基因组时代，诸如病毒学，环境蛋白质组学和古老的蛋白质分析等某些领域也缺乏测序的基因组。在其他领域，例如考古，艺术和文化遗产，尤其是法医学，可能已对相关的基因组进行了测序，但尚不清楚哪个测序的基因组适合与蛋白质组学分析配对。从头肽鉴定工具使用算法来解释质谱，而无需参考测序的基因组。在本期杂志中，O'Bryon等人。评论de novo方法及其在病毒学，元蛋白质组学，蛋白质药物分析和法医蛋白质组学中的应用。https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pro.3919