Proteomic analysis of the effect of heat stress on hexaploid wheat grain: characterization of heat-responsive proteins from non-prolamins fraction.

The effect of heat stress on hexaploid wheat grain proteome was recently analyzed in our previous works. Proteomic tools allowed the characterization of heat-responsive proteins of total endosperm, composed mainly of prolamins. The present work completes this study; our aim was to analyze the effect of heat stress on the water-soluble fraction, composed essentially of albumins and globulins. These proteins were separated by two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE), visualized by Coomassie Brilliant Blue (CBB) staining and analyzed by Melanie-3 software. Of the 43 heat-changed proteins, 24 were found to be up-regulated whereas 19 spot proteins were down-regulated. All of these proteins were subjected to matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) followed by database searching which allowed the identification of 42 spots. Of these, some were enzymes involved in different metabolic pathways of plants, such as granule-bound starch synthase and glucose-1-phosphate adenyltransferase, involved in the starch synthesis pathway; beta-amylase, involved in carbohydrate metabolism, and the ATP synthase beta-chain that was related to four heat-decreased proteins. Moreover, five heat up-regulated proteins showed similarities with small heat shock proteins while three other spots were related to elongation factors or eucaryotic translation initiation factors. Proteins involved in abiotic stresses or in plant defense mechanism were also identified and are discussed.