RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A prioritized and validated resource of mitochondrial proteins in Plasmodium identifies leads to unique biology JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2021.01.22.427784 DO 10.1101/2021.01.22.427784 A1 Selma L. van Esveld A1 Lisette Meerstein-Kessel A1 Cas Boshoven A1 Jochem F. Baaij A1 Konstantin Barylyuk A1 Jordy P. M. Coolen A1 Ronald AJ. Duim A1 Bas E. Dutilh A1 Daniel R. Garza A1 Marijn Letterie A1 Nicholas I. Proellochs A1 Michelle N. de Ridder A1 Prashanna Balaji Venkatasubramanian A1 Laura E. de Vries A1 Ross F. Waller A1 Taco W.A. Kooij A1 Martijn A. Huynen YR 2021 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/23/2021.01.22.427784.abstract AB Plasmodium species have a single mitochondrion that is essential for their survival and has been successfully targeted by anti-malarial drugs. Most proteins are imported into this organelle and our picture of the Plasmodium mitochondrial proteome remains incomplete. Many data sources contain information about mitochondrial localization, including proteome and gene expression profiles, orthology to mitochondrial proteins from other species, co-evolutionary relationships, and amino acid sequences, each with different coverage and reliability. To obtain a comprehensive, prioritized list of Plasmodium falciparum mitochondrial proteins, we rigorously analyzed and integrated eight datasets using Bayesian statistics into a predictive score per protein for mitochondrial localization. At a corrected false discovery rate of 25%, we identified 295 proteins with a sensitivity of 65% and a specificity of 98%. They include proteins that have not been identified as mitochondrial in other eukaryotes but have characterized homologs in bacteria that are involved in metabolism or translation. Mitochondrial localization of seven Plasmodium berghei orthologs was confirmed by epitope labeling and co-localization with a mitochondrial marker protein. One of these belongs to a newly identified apicomplexan mitochondrial protein family that in P. falciparum has four members. With the experimentally validated mitochondrial proteins and the complete ranked P. falciparum proteome, which we have named PlasmoMitoCarta, we present a resource to study unique proteins of Plasmodium mitochondria.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.