Protein Profiles Reveal Diverse Responsive Signaling Pathways in Kernels of Two Maize Inbred Lines with Contrasting Drought Sensitivity

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Liming Yang⁵  Tingbo Jiang³  Jake C. Fountain²  Brian T. Scully⁵  Robert D. Lee¹  Robert C. Kemerait²  Sixue Chen⁴  Baozhu Guo⁵ 

[1] Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Tifton, GA 31793, USA; E-Mail:;Department of Plant Pathology, University of Georgia, Tifton, GA 31793, USA; E-Mails:;State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China; E-Mail:;Department of Biology, Genetics Institute, and Plant Molecular & Cellular Biology Program, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA; E-Mail:;USDA-ARS, Crop Protection and Management Research Unit, Tifton, GA 31793, USA; E-Mails:

关键词: maize kernel;    differentially expressed proteins;    drought stress;    iTRAQ-based proteomics;    signaling pathways;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms151018892

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Drought stress is a major factor that contributes to disease susceptibility and yield loss in agricultural crops. To identify drought responsive proteins and explore metabolic pathways involved in maize tolerance to drought stress, two maize lines (B73 and Lo964) with contrasting drought sensitivity were examined. The treatments of drought and well water were applied at 14 days after pollination (DAP), and protein profiles were investigated in developing kernels (35 DAP) using iTRAQ (isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation). Proteomic analysis showed that 70 and 36 proteins were significantly altered in their expression under drought treatments in B73 and Lo964, respectively. The numbers and levels of differentially expressed proteins were generally higher in the sensitive genotype, B73, implying an increased sensitivity to drought given the function of the observed differentially expressed proteins, such as redox homeostasis, cell rescue/defense, hormone regulation and protein biosynthesis and degradation. Lo964 possessed a more stable status with fewer differentially expressed proteins. However, B73 seems to rapidly initiate signaling pathways in response to drought through adjusting diverse defense pathways. These changes in protein expression allow for the production of a drought stress-responsive network in maize kernels.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.