Analysis of Soybean Drought-Tolerant Cultivar Proteome Using Dimethyl Labeling Method

Soybean (Glycine Max (L.) Merr), like those maize, wheat, rice and cotton crops, is an important agricultural crop traded in the global commodity markets. the production of soybean has been curtailed by numerous harsh environmental stresses, especially drought, a water deficit state of soil. The isotopic dimethyl labeling was applied to study the proteomic changes associated with the drought responses of two contrasting soybean cultivars. A total of 874 non-redundant and repeatable peptides were identified among 17787 peptides in tolerant cultivar (these peptides changed significantly to compare with sensitive cultivar) by using MS/MS analysis which corresponding to 260 of protein groups. Among these 260 protein groups, there were 142 groups being up-regulated in the drought-tolerant cultivar under drought treatment and in contrast, there were 118 groups being down-regulated by drought-tolerant cultivar. InterPro protein domain enrichment and Gene Ontology were performed for functional analysis. According to the results most of these proteins are related to photosynthesis activity, energy metabolism, ROS-scavenging activity, channel and transporter activity, gene expression and translation regulation, Carbohydrate derivative metabolic process, Organic acid and substance metabolic process and sugar alcohols catabolic process.