OH 44691 Interactions between plants and microbial pathogens involve complex signal exchanges at the plant surface and intercellular space interface. Surface components of a pathogen must play important roles in the development of a complete infection cycle and recognition by resistant plants. We aim at identifying extracellular proteins from Phytophthora infestans, an economically important oomycete pathogen. Targeting extracellular proteins will increase the probability of identifying proteins essential for virulence and survival of the pathogen.
Pex genes are novel with no significant matches in public databases.
The algorithm was validated using a number of methods. For example, PexFinder identified numerous genes with significant matches to known extracellular proteins, as well as all previously characterized extracellular proteins from Phytophthora that were represented in the EST data set.