Protein Bioinformatics

Rima Chaudhuri, Jean Yee Hwa Yang

Cathy H. Wu, Cecilia N. Arighi, Karen E. Ross

Protein post-translational modifications (PTMs) are crucial for signal transduction in cells. In order to understand key cell signaling events, identification of functionally important PTMs, which are more likely to be evolutionarily conserved, is necessary. In recent times, high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS) has made quantitative datasets in diverse species readily available, which has led to a growing need for tools to facilitate cross-species comparison of PTM data. Cross-species comparison of PTM sites is difficult since they often lie in structurally disordered protein domains. Current tools that address this can only map known PTMs between species based on previously annotated orthologous phosphosites and do not enable cross-species mapping of newly identified modification sites. Here, we describe an automated web-based tool, PhosphOrtholog, that accurately maps annotated and novel orthologous PTM sites from high-throughput MS-based experimental data obtained from different species without relying on existing PTM databases. Identification of conserved PTMs across species from large-scale experimental data increases our knowledgebase of evolutionarily conserved and functional PTM sites that influence most biological processes. In this Chapter, we illustrate with examples how to use PhosphOrtholog to map novel PTM sites from cross-species MS-based phosphoproteomics data.