DIAFree enables untargeted open-search identification for Data-Independent Acquisition data

As a reliable and high-throughput proteomics strategy, data-independent acquisition (DIA) has shown great potential for protein analysis. However, DIA also imposes stress on the data processing algorithm by generating complex multiplexed spectra. Traditionally, DIA data is processed using spectral libraries refined from experiment histories, which requires stable experiment conditions and additional runs. Furthermore, scientists still need to use library-free tools to generate spectral libraries from additional runs. To lessen those burdens, here we present DIAFree(https://github.com/xuesu/DIAFree), a library-free, tag-index-based software suite that enables both restrict search and open search on DIA data using the information of MS1 scans in a precursor-centric and spectrum-centric style. We validate the quality of detection by publicly available data. We further evaluate the quality of spectral libraries produced by DIAFree.