Abundant protein phosphorylation potentially regulates Arabidopsis anther development

As the male reproductive organ of flowering plants, the stamen consists of the anther and filament. Previous studies on stamen development mainly focused on single gene functions by genetic methods or gene expression changes using comparative transcriptomic approaches, especially in model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana. However, studies on Arabidopsis anther protein expression and post-translational modifications are still lacking. Here we report proteomic and phosphoproteomic studies on developing Arabidopsis anthers at stages 4–7 and 8–12. We identified 3908 high-confidence phosphorylation sites corresponding to 1637 phosphoproteins. Among the 1637 phosphoproteins, 493 were newly identified, with 952 phosphorylation sites. Phosphopeptide enrichment prior to LC-MS analysis facilitated the identification of low-abundance proteins and regulatory proteins, thereby increasing the coverage of proteomic analysis, and facilitated the analysis of more regulatory proteins. Thirty-nine serine and six threonine phosphorylation motifs were uncovered from the anther phosphoproteome and further analysis supports that phosphorylation of casein kinase II, mitogen-activated protein kinases, and 14-3-3 proteins is a key regulatory mechanism in anther development. Phosphorylated residues were preferentially located in variable protein regions among family members, but they were they were conserved across angiosperms in general. Moreover, phosphorylation might reduce activity of reactive oxygen species scavenging enzymes and hamper brassinosteroid signaling in early anther development. Most of the novel phosphoproteins showed tissue-specific expression in the anther according to previous microarray data. This study provides a community resource with information on the abundance and phosphorylation status of thousands of proteins in developing anthers, contributing to understanding post-translational regulatory mechanisms during anther development.