Proteomics and Phosphoproteomic Analysis to Identify Spleen of Takifugu rubripes Infected Cryptocaryon irritans

Takifugu rubripes is important commercially fish species in China and it is under serious threat from white spot disease (cyptocaryoniasis), which leads to heavy economic losses. In this study, we used proteomics and phosphoproteomic analysis to identify differentially abundant proteins in the spleen of T. rubripes infected with the Cryptocaryon irritans . We identified 5,307 proteins and 6,644 phosphorylated sites on 2,815 phosphoproteins using high-throughput proteomics analysis of the spleen of T. rubripes based on 26,421 unique peptides and 5,013 modified peptides, respectively. The 5,307 quantified host proteins, 40 were upregulated and 43 were downregulated in the infection group compared to the control group. Among the 2815 phosphoproteins, 44/120 were upregulated/downregulated, and 62/151 were upregulated/downregulated in the 6644 quantified phosphosites. Using the combination of Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses, screening for significantly different phosphoproteins, motif analysis and protein–protein interaction analysis, we ultimately identified three phosphorylated proteins (G-protein-signaling modulator 1-like, zinc finger protein 850-like, and histone H1-like) and three phosphorylated protein kinases (serine/threonine-protein kinase homolog isoform X2, mitogen-activated protein kinase 5-like, and protein kinase C theta type) as potential biomarkers for T. rubripes immune responses. We then screened the phosphorylation sites of these biomarker proteins for further verification. Based on our results, we speculate that phosphorylation modification of the phosphorylation sites is involved in the immunity of T. rubripes against C. irritans .