The Green Proteome: Challenges in Plant Proteomics

Joshua L Heazlewood

doi:10.3389/fpls.2011.00006

Abstract

An organism is an expression of its underlying molecular composition that reacts and responds to a variety of stimuli. Central to this response are proteins, which undertake a multitude of functional and structural roles throughout an organism. The ability to readily identify and analyze protein populations (proteomics) represents a recent technological advance in the field of biological sciences. Although the term proteomics was coined in the mid 1990’s (Wilkins, 2009), the technique was significantly hampered by a lack of cohesive genomics data and advanced instrumentation. The field of proteomics has expanded rapidly in recent years due to the completion of genomes, access and improvements to mass spectrometers and the development of new techniques all of which have increased its role in biological research (Han et al., 2008).

Highlights

In general the area of plant proteomics suffers from the similar challenges that face other research fields
A number of successful strategies have been developed to overcome these issues including mass spectrometry compatible extraction procedures designed for plant tissues (Isaacson et al, 2006; Sheoran et al, 2009)
Since protein samples derived from whole tissue are likely to contain many thousands of proteins, there are considerable technological advances that will need to be achieved before complete proteomic profiling can occur in plants

Summary

Introduction

In general the area of plant proteomics suffers from the similar challenges that face other research fields. Since protein samples derived from whole tissue are likely to contain many thousands of proteins, there are considerable technological advances that will need to be achieved before complete proteomic profiling can occur in plants. When these studies are combined, such approaches begin to create a protein location map of the plant cell and have gone some way to provide overviews of the subcellular proteome (Heazlewood et al, 2007).

Results

Conclusion