Unlocking the Puzzling Biology of the Black Périgord Truffle <i>Tuber melanosporum</i>

The black Périgord truffle (Tuber melanosporum Vittad.) is a highly prized food today, with its unique scent (i.e., perfume) and texture. Despite these attributes, it remains relatively poorly studied, lacking “omics” information to characterize its biology and biochemistry, especially changes associated with freshness and the proteins/metabolites responsible for its organoleptic properties. In this study, we have functionally annotated the truffle proteome from the 2010 T. melanosporum genome comprising 12 771 putative nonredundant proteins. Using sequential BLAST search strategies, we identified homologues for 2587 proteins with 2486 (96.0%) fungal homologues (available from http://biolinfo.org/protannotator/blacktruffle.php). A combined 1D PAGE and high-accuracy LC–MS/MS proteomic study was employed to validate the results of the functional annotation and identified 836 (6.5%) proteins, of which 47.5% (i.e., 397) were present in our bioinformatics studies. Our study, functionally annotating 6487 black Périgord truffle proteins and confirming 836 by proteomic experiments, is by far the most comprehensive study to date contributing significantly to the scientific community. This study has resulted in the functional characterization of novel proteins to increase our biological understanding of this organism and to uncover potential biomarkers of authenticity, freshness, and perfume maturation.黑佩里戈尔松露（Tuber melanosporum Vittad.）如今已是备受推崇的珍稀食材，兼具独特香气与质地口感。尽管拥有这些优良特质，该物种的研究仍相对匮乏，缺乏用于解析其生物学与生物化学特性的组学数据，尤其是与新鲜度相关的变化，以及赋予其感官特性的蛋白质与代谢物相关信息。本研究针对2010年发布的黑松露基因组所编码的蛋白质组进行了功能注释，该基因组共包含12771个推定非冗余蛋白质。本研究采用序列BLAST搜索策略，为2587个蛋白质鉴定到同源蛋白，其中2486个（96.0%）为真菌同源蛋白（相关数据可访问http://biolinfo.org/protannotator/blacktruffle.php获取）。本研究结合一维聚丙烯酰胺凝胶电泳（1D PAGE）与高精度液相色谱-串联质谱（LC–MS/MS）的蛋白质组学实验，对功能注释结果进行了验证，共鉴定出836个蛋白质（占总数的6.5%），其中47.5%（即397个）已在我们的生物信息学分析中被检出。本研究共完成6487个黑佩里戈尔松露蛋白质的功能注释，并通过蛋白质组学实验验证了其中836个蛋白质，是迄今为止该领域最为全面的研究成果，可为科学界提供重要支撑。本研究通过对新型蛋白质进行功能表征，加深了学界对该物种的生物学认知，同时发掘出一批可用于鉴定松露真伪、新鲜度以及香气成熟度的潜在生物标志物。