COMPARATIVE SEQUENCE ANALYSIS PROCESSES AND SYSTEMS

1 . A process for identifying or determining the presence or absence of a target nucleotide sequence in a sample, which comprises:

a. generating a sample set of mass signals for a sample set of nucleic acid fragments by mass spectrometry, wherein the sample set of nucleic acid fragments results from contacting the target nucleotide sequence with a specific cleavage agent;

b. identifying and scoring matching peak patterns between (i) the sample set of mass signals and (ii) a reference set of mass signals derived from cleavage products resulting from a reference nucleic acid contacted with, or virtually contacted with, the specific cleavage agent, wherein scoring is calculated from an overall score by combining a bitmap score, a discriminating feature matching score and a distance score;

c. selecting a top-ranked subset of matching peak patterns between the sample set of mass signals and the reference set of mass signals based on the scoring;

d. iteratively re-scoring matching peak patterns in the subset and identifying one or more top-ranked matching peak patterns; and

e. determining the presence or absence of the target nucleotide sequence in the sample by the match between the one or more top-ranked matching peak patterns.

2 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the reference peak pattern is determined by:

aligning by mass all the reference peaks within a set;

representing each reference peak with a peak intensity;

calculating the distance between each peak intensity within the reference set; and

clustering reference peaks to generate a minimum set of cleavage reactions.

3 . The process of claim 2 , wherein the peak intensity is determined by:

acquiring and filtering a subset of mass spectra;

grouping one or more sets of peaks together;

calculating the group intensity using the heights and masses for each peak in the group; and

normalizing the group intensities.

4 . The process of claim 2 , wherein the clustering is determined by:

identifying peaks present in one set of references but absent in other sets;

sub-clustering until each cluster has only one sequence or a set indistinguishable sequences;

summing up the intensities of the peaks in the sub-clusters; and

evaluating the differences between sub-clusters.

5 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the sample matching peak patterns is further calibrated by:

matching the sample peaks to reference peaks within a certain mass window;

removing sample peak outliners by evaluating an overall deviation pattern;

selecting high intensity peaks which are evenly distributed across the whole mass range as anchor peaks; and

comparing the number of peaks matching a preselected set of peaks or anchor peak sets from the reference peak patterns.

6 . The process of claim 5 , wherein the peak intensities are adjusted by:

fitting peak intensities to a standard profile of different mass ranges;

fitting the center mass regions of the profile to a Gaussian curve; and

revising the intensities for all detected peaks with the adjustment.

7 . The process of claim 5 , wherein the anchor peaks are calibrated by their mass and spectrum quality.

8 . The process of claim 1 , which comprises identifying potential sequence variations in the nucleotide sequence of the one or more top-ranked matching peak patterns of the reference set and/or the sample set.

9 . The process of claim 1 , which comprises assigning a confidence value to the match between the one or more top-ranked matching peak patterns.

10 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the distance score is calculated based on distance of the identified feature vectors to all reference feature vectors.

11 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the reference set of mass signals is derived from cleavage products resulting from a reference nucleic acid virtually contacted with the specific cleavage agent.

12 . The process of claim 11 , wherein the reference set of mass signals is subject to clustering.

13 . The process of claim 12 , wherein each of the reference sets is compared to the sample set.

14 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the bitmap score is calculated by comparing intensities of detected and individual reference peak patterns weighted by reference peak intensity.

15 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the discriminating feature matching score is calculated by evaluating a subset of features that discriminate one feature pattern from another or one set of patterns from another set.

16 . The process of claim 1 , further comprising a determining peak pattern identity score from the sum of the matched peak intensities, missing and additional peak intensities, silent missing peak intensities and silent additional peak intensities for the reference peak patterns.

17 . The process of claim 1 , further comprising evaluating each sample against all the references for an adjusted peak change which is a summed intensity of missing peaks and additional peaks due to spectrum qualities and adjusted by unknown peaks and adduct peaks to determine variability of the sample from the reference.

18 . The process of claim 17 , further comprising evaluating the confidence of the subset of matching peaks patterns by determining a density distribution between scores and adjusted peak changes.