Backyard Proteomics: A Case Study with the Black Widow Spider.

Area of Science:

• Proteomics
• Genomics
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Mass-spectrometry-based proteomics typically requires a known proteome for the target species.
• Performing proteomic analysis on organisms with unannotated genomes presents significant challenges.
• The availability of genomic data is crucial for advancing proteomic studies in diverse organisms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the feasibility of conducting proteomic analysis on organisms lacking comprehensive genomic annotation.
• To establish a draft proteome map for the black widow spider (Latrodectus spp.).
• To assess the utility of existing, albeit unrelated, spider genome annotations for protein identification.

Main Methods:

• Utilized mass spectrometry-based proteomics on black widow spider samples.
• Employed ortholog mapping to assign putative annotations to identified proteins.
• Leveraged existing spider genome annotations to supplement data from an annotated black widow genome.

Main Results:

• Successfully identified 5,502 protein groups and assigned annotations using an annotated black widow spider genome.
• Demonstrated that over 2,000 additional proteins could be identified using unrelated spider genome annotations.
• Found that toxin-annotated proteins were predominantly located in the main body of mature female black widow spiders.

Conclusions:

• A draft proteome map for the black widow spider was generated.
• The study provides valuable data for validating machine learning models in proteomics.
• These findings suggest that proteomic analysis is feasible for a vast number of less-studied organisms.