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The oomycete Phytophthora infestansis the most harmful pathogen of potato. It causes the disease late blight, which generates increased yearly costs of up to one billion euro in the EU alone and is difficult to control. We have performed a large-scale quantitative proteomics study of six P. infestanslife stages with the aim to identify proteins that change in abundance during development, with a focus on preinfectious life stages. Over 10 000 peptides from 2061 proteins were analyzed. We identified several abundance profiles of proteins that were up- or downregulated in different combinations of life stages. One of these profiles contained 59 proteins that were more abundant in germinated cysts and appressoria. A large majority of these proteins were not previously recognized as being appressorial proteins or involved in the infection process. Among those are proteins with putative roles in transport, amino acid metabolism, pathogenicity (including one RXLR effector) and cell wall structure modification. We analyzed the expression of the genes encoding nine of these proteins using RT-qPCR and found an increase in transcript levels during disease progression, in agreement with the hypothesis that these proteins are important in early infection. Among the nine proteins was a group involved in cell wall structure modification and adhesion, including three closely related, uncharacterized proteins encoded by PITG_01131, PITG_01132, and PITG_16135, here denoted Piacwp1–3. Transient silencing of these genes resulted in reduced severity of infection, indicating that these proteins are important for pathogenicity. Our results contribute to further insight into P. infestansbiology, and indicate processes that might be relevant for the pathogen while preparing for host cell penetration and during infection. The mass spectrometry data have been deposited to ProteomeXchange via the PRIDE partner repository with the data set identifier PXD002446.

High-throughput multiplexed protein quantification using mass spectrometry is steadily increasing in popularity, with the two major techniques being data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and targeted acquisition using selected reaction monitoring (SRM). However, both techniques involve extensive data processing, which can be performed by a multitude of different software solutions. Analysis of quantitative LC-MS/MS data is mainly performed in three major steps: processing of raw data, normalization, and statistical analysis. To evaluate the impact of data processing steps, we developed two new benchmark data sets, one each for DDA and SRM, with samples consisting of a long-range dilution series of synthetic peptides spiked in a total cell protein digest. The generated data were processed by eight different software workflows and three postprocessing steps. The results show that the choice of the raw data processing software and the postprocessing steps play an important role in the final outcome. Also, the linear dynamic range of the DDA data could be extended by an order of magnitude through feature alignment and a charge state merging algorithm proposed here. Furthermore, the benchmark data sets are made publicly available for further benchmarking and software developments.

The oomycete Phytophthora infestansis the causal agent of late blight in potato and tomato. Since the underlying processes that govern pathogenicity and development in P. infestansare largely unknown, we have performed a large-scale phosphoproteomics study of six different P. infestanslife stages. We have obtained quantitative data for 2922 phosphopeptides and compared their abundance. Life-stage-specific phosphopeptides include ATP-binding cassette transporters and a kinase that only occurs in appressoria. In an extended data set, we identified 2179 phosphorylation sites and deduced 22 phosphomotifs. Several of the phosphomotifs matched consensus sequences of kinases that occur in P. infestansbut not Arabidopsis. In addition, we detected tyrosine phosphopeptides that are potential targets of kinases resembling mammalian tyrosine kinases. Among the phosphorylated proteins are members of the RXLR and Crinkler effector families. The latter are phosphorylated in several life stages and at multiple positions, in sites that are conserved between different members of the Crinkler family. This indicates that proteins in the Crinkler family have functions beyond their putative role as (necrosis-inducing) effectors. This phosphoproteomics data will be instrumental for studies on oomycetes and host–oomycete interactions. The data sets have been deposited to ProteomeXchange (identifier PXD000433).