Systematic analysis of the lysine acetylome in Fusarium graminearum.

Background: Lysine acetylation in proteins is a ubiquitous and conserved post-translational modification, playing a critical regulatory role in almost every aspect of living cells. Although known for many years, its function remains elusive in Fusarium graminearum, one of the most important necrotrophic plant pathogens with huge economic impact.

Results: By the combination of affinity enrichment and high-resolution LC-MS/MS analysis, large-scale lysine acetylome analysis was performed. In total, 577 lysine acetylation sites matched to 364 different proteins were identified. Bioinformatics analysis of the acetylome showed that the acetylated proteins are involved in a wide range of cellular functions and exhibit diverse subcellular localizations. Remarkably, 10 proteins involved in the virulence or DON (deoxynivalenol) biosynthesis were found to be acetylated, including 4 transcription factors, 4 protein kinases and 2 phosphatases. Protein-protein interaction network analysis revealed that acetylated protein complexes are involved in diversified interactions.

Conclusions: This work provides the first comprehensive survey of a possible lysine acetylome in F. graminearum and reveals previously unappreciated roles of lysine acetylation in the regulation of diverse biological processes. This work provides a resource for functional analysis of acetylated proteins in filamentous fungi.