Comparative secretome prediction and analysis of two Phytophthora spp.

Abstract

Phytophthora spp. are widely distributed pathogens causing some of the most devastating diseases in plants. They accomplish parasitic colonization in hosts by virtue of an array of signaling proteins. Secretome analysis is one of the methods to attain molecular insights into species pathogenicity. In this study, we have analyzed the proteome of two species viz., P. ramorum and P. sojae and predicted extracellular secretory proteins particularly involved in hostpathogen interactions. The potential Phytophthora spp. secretome comprising of both the classical and nonclassical secretory proteins was predicted with the aid of a stringent computational pipeline. Out of the 15,743 P. ramorum and 19,027 P. sojae proteins which were computationally analyzed in the current study, 1396 (8.86%) and 1666 (8.75%) proteins were categorized as classical secretory proteins (CSPs) while a total of 71 (0.45%) and 96 (0.50%) proteins were categorized as non-classical secretory proteins (NCSPs) in P. ramorum and P. sojae respectively. In addition, 235 and 399 effector proteins were also predicted from P. ramorum and P. sojae respectively. The functional annotation of the effector proteins revealed the occurrence of SSPs (small specific proteins), virulence and avirulence factors which could prove to be future target to control the pathogenicity and to decipher its role in host-parasite interactions.