The reporter learned from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences on the 30th that the Institute of Biotechnology of the Academy and several domestic institutions have jointly drawn a panoramic quantitative proteome map of rice. The relevant research results were recently published in the international journal Nature Plants.

Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Until now, due to the limited coverage and accuracy of proteomics technology, people have not had a deep understanding of the quantitative proteome of crops and the regulatory mechanism of protein expression. Proteins are the main executors of various biological functions of crops. Constructing a panoramic quantitative protein map is of great significance in explaining plant growth and development, stress response and metabolic regulation.

Liang Zhe, the corresponding author of the paper and a researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told reporters that researchers used mass spectrometry and other technologies to quantify the protein levels of more than 15,000 genes in major rice tissues, identified 8,964 proteins, and provided protein level evidence for another 7,077 protein-coding genes, thereby drawing a panoramic quantitative proteome map of rice.

"This study successfully mapped the first panoramic quantitative proteome map of crops to date. Previous studies on plant gene expression regulation mainly focused on the genome to transcriptome level, and established a multi-omics research strategy for the key link from transcript (RNA) to protein in the central dogma (the direction of genetic information flow in organisms). This study found that the expression level of protein is not only affected by the transcription process, but also regulated by post-transcriptional modifications. This study provides important protein expression resources for the study of rice gene function and provides new ideas for intelligent design and breeding of crops based on multi-omics data. In addition, the quantitative proteomics method used in the study also provides a reference for in-depth research on the proteomes of other crops." Liang Zhe said.