Plant Phosphopeptide Identification and Label-Free Quantification by MaxQuant and Proteome Discoverer Software.

Both the phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of plant proteins is involved in multiple biological processes, especially in regard to signal transduction. The identification of phosphopeptides from MS (mass spectrometry)-based methods and their subsequent quantification play an important role in plant phosphoproteomics analysis. Phosphopeptide(s) identification and label-free quantification can determine dynamic changes of phosphorylation events in plants. Both MaxQuant and Proteome Discoverer are professional software tools used to identify and quantify large-scale MS-based phosphoproteomic data. This chapter gives a detailed workflow of MaxQuant and Proteome Discoverer software to analyze large amounts of phosphoproteomic-related MS data for the identification and quantification of label-free plant phosphopeptides.