Atmospheric CO 2 enrichment changes the wheat grain proteome

Abstract

Spring wheat ( Triticum aestivum L. cv. Triso) was grown in a free-air CO 2 enrichment (FACE) field experiment in order to gain information on CO 2-induced effects on grain composition and quality at maturity. A proteome analysis was performed using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and protein identification was done with mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). In elevated CO 2 (526 μl l −1), an increase of 13.5% in grain yield was observed relative to 375 μl l −1 at a low level of significance ( P = 0.528). Total grain protein concentration was decreased by 3.5% at a high level of statistical significance. Most importantly, a number of statistically significant changes within the grain proteome were observed, as the levels of 32 proteins were affected by elevated CO 2: 16 proteins were up-regulated and 16 were down-regulated. Our experiment demonstrates that high-CO 2 can markedly affect the proteome of mature wheat grain. The potential role of the proteins, changed in response to CO 2 enrichment, is discussed as some may affect grain quality. For the task of selecting cultivars resistant to CO 2-induced quality loss, we propose to consider the proteins affected by elevated CO 2 identified in this work here.