Changes in Protein Complement Accompany Early Organogenesis in the Maize Ear

Abstract

A complement of more than 800 soluble proteins was resolved at each of the first five successive stages of early development of the Zea mays ovulate inflorescence by high resolution two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and a multicolor silver stain. Among the polypeptide complement a subset of 39 occurred that appeared and/or disappeared during the first five organogenic stages of development. All individual subset polypeptides were observed at one or more stages of development, but not all five. The temporal modifications in appearance and/or disappearance of polypeptides during development fell into several distinct patterns. None of these proteins appeared exclusively at either the stage with branch primordia or floral primordia with lemmas. In contrast, the appearance of some proteins in the subset was restricted to only the terminal meristem, the spikelet primordia, or the spikelet primordia with lemmas. Most of the subset polypeptides appeared first in association with spikelet primord...