dnoise: Fast Native Data Reduction for Bruker timsTOF

Abstract

Bruker timsTOF acquisitions produce dense native .d files whose storage, transfer, and archival become substantial at high throughput. We present dnoise, an open-source Rust tool that removes points directly from timsTOF frames and writes a native-compatible .d directory. dnoise retains ions that form coherent streaks across the ion-mobility dimension and applies acquisition-aware gates to signal that cannot be selected for fragmentation. On a three-species benchmark spanning ddaPASEF and diaPASEF at 5- and 15-minute gradients, default MS1-only denoising reduced the frame binary by 35 to 53%. Label-free quantification accuracy was preserved in both modes. ddaPASEF peptide-spectrum-match, peptide, and protein-group counts were unchanged, as expected with the searched MS/MS spectra untouched, and diaPASEF precursor and protein-group counts changed only slightly. Every tested processing run completed in 69 seconds or less on the benchmark workstation. Optional MS/MS denoising produced greater reduction but sacrificed several percent of identifications. Thus, a substantial fraction of native timsTOF frame data can be removed with little analytical change.