Department of Genetics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Biotechnology Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Sci Adv. 2017 Jul 5;3(7):e1700523. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1700523. eCollection 2017 Jul.
The electric eel () is unusual among electric fishes because it has three pairs of electric organs that serve multiple biological functions: For navigation and communication, it emits continuous pulses of weak electric discharge (<1 V), but for predation and defense, it intermittently emits lethal strong electric discharges (10 to 600 V). We hypothesized that these two electrogenic outputs have different energetic demands reflected by differences in their proteome and phosphoproteome. We report the use of isotope-assisted quantitative mass spectrometry to test this hypothesis. We observed novel phosphorylation sites in sodium transporters and identified a potassium channel with unique differences in protein concentration among the electric organs. In addition, we found transcription factors and protein kinases that show differential abundance in the strong versus weak electric organs. Our findings support the hypothesis that proteomic differences among electric organs underlie differences in energetic needs, reflecting a trade-off between generating weak voltages continuously and strong voltages intermittently.
电鳗（）在电鱼中是不同寻常的，因为它有三对电器官，具有多种生物学功能：用于导航和通讯时，它会发出持续的弱电流脉冲（<1 V），但用于捕食和防御时，它会间歇性地发出致命的强电流脉冲（10 到 600 V）。我们假设这两种发电输出具有不同的能量需求，这可以反映在它们的蛋白质组和磷酸化蛋白质组的差异上。我们报告了使用同位素辅助定量质谱来检验这一假设。我们在钠离子转运体中观察到了新的磷酸化位点，并在电器官中鉴定出了一种具有独特差异的钾通道。此外，我们还发现了转录因子和蛋白激酶，它们在强电和弱电器官中的丰度存在差异。我们的研究结果支持了这样一种假设，即电器官之间的蛋白质组差异是能量需求差异的基础，反映了连续产生弱电压和间歇性产生强电压之间的权衡。
