METHODS FOR RESOLVING CHARGE-STATE AMBIGUITIES IN HIGH AND ULTRA-HIGH MASS RANGE MASS SPECTRA

A mass spectrometry method comprises: identifying groups of charge state distributions (CSDs) within deconvoluted mass spectrometric data, wherein CSDs of each group comprise at least one common mass spectral peak that is assigned a different respective charge state within each CSD of each group; assigning, within each group, a respective weighting factor to each CSD; calculating, within each group and using the weighting factors, a score-weighted average molecular weight for each compound CSD; locating, within each group, a single target CSD that that corresponds to a molecular weight that is closest to the calculated average; for each common peak of each identified group, summing the intensities of the respective common assigned mass spectral peak across the group and assigning the summed intensity to the single target CSD of the group; discarding all CSDs other than the target CSDs; and calculating an abundance of each component compound using the summed intensities.