Comparison of different versions of SignalP and TargetP for diatom plastid protein predictions with ASAFind

Plastid targeted proteins of diatoms and related algae can be predicted with high sensitivity and specificity using the ASAFind method published in 2015. ASAFind predictions rely on SignalP predictions of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) targeting signal peptides. Recently (in 2019), a new version of SignalP was released, SignalP 5.0. We tested the ability of SignalP 5.0 to recognize signal peptides of nucleus-encoded, plastid-targeted diatom pre-proteins, and to identify the signal peptide cleavage site. The results were compared to manual predictions of the characteristic cleavage site motif, and to previous versions of SignalP. SignalP 5.0 is less sensitive than the previous versions of SignalP in this specific task, and also in the detection of signal peptides of non-plastid proteins in diatoms. However, in combination with ASAFind, the resulting prediction performance for plastid proteins is high. In addition, we tested the multi-location prediction tool TargetP for its suitability to provide signal peptide information to ASAFind. The newest version, TargetP 2.0, had the highest prediction performances for diatom signal peptides and mitochondrial transit peptides compared to other versions of SignalP and TargetP, thus it provides a good basis for ASAFind predictions.