A hit is a collection of proteins identified by a set of peptides or peptide-sequence matches. Mascot assigns up to ten peptide sequences of each submitted spectra. Each peptide sequences belongs to one or more proteins. Proteins that span the same set of peptides, or a subset, are collapsed into a single hit.

A query is a spectra submitted to Mascot for identification

Queries that or not matching any peptide sequence.

Queries matching one or more peptide sequences, but whose peptides are not collapsed into hit.

Queries matching one or more peptides that are not collapsed into hits (unassigned peptides queries) or that are classified as ambiguous.

Queries matching at least one peptide sequence classified as significant or duplicated into one or more hits.