Peptide profiling of Internet‐obtained Cerebrolysin using high performance liquid chromatography – electrospray ionization ion trap and ultra high performance liquid chromatography – ion mobility – quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry

Cerebrolysin, a parenteral peptide preparation produced by controlled digestion of porcine brain proteins, is an approved nootropic medicine in some countries. However, it is also easily and globally available on the Internet. Nevertheless, until now, its exact chemical composition was unknown. Using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to ion trap and ultra high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to quadrupole‐ion mobility‐time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (Q‐IM‐TOF MS), combined with UniProt pig protein database search and PEAKS de novo sequencing, we identified 638 unique peptides in an Internet‐obtained Cerebrolysin sample. The main components in this sample originate from tubulin alpha‐ and beta‐chain, actin, and myelin basic protein. No fragments of known neurotrophic factors like glial cell‐derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), neurotrophin nerve growth factor (NGF), brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) were found, suggesting that the activities reported in the literature are likely the result of new, hitherto unknown cryptic peptides with nootropic properties. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.