Validated MS1 ions were further analyzed by “MS2 run only” mode to identify the splice junction peptide with the desired b- and y- ions. The LC-MS/MS experiment was performed with an Easy-nLC 1200 UPLC system employing a 45 cm × 75 μm (inner diameter) nano-capillary column packed with 1.9 μm C18-AQ resin (Dr. Maisch, Germany) mated to a metal emitter in-line with an Orbitrap Fusion Lumos (Thermo Scientific, USA). The column temperature was 45 °C, and a one-hour gradient method was run at a flow rate of 300 nL/min. The mass spectrometer was operated to scan MS2 from MS1 of the inclusion list with a 60,000 resolution (positive mode, profile mode, AGC target of 4 × 105, maximum IT of 118 ms) in the Orbitrap, followed by HCD fragmentation in the ion trap with 30% collision energy. The isolation window for precursor ions was set to 0.4 m/z in the quadrupole.
Raw files were processed with Thermo XCalibur Qual Browser, and MS2 peaks were manually annotated.