Proteome changes in wild and modern wheat leaves upon drought stress by two-dimensional electrophoresis and nanoLC-ESI-MS/MS.

To elucidate differentially expressed proteins and to further understand post-translational modifications of transcripts, full leaf proteome profiles of two wild emmer (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides TR39477 and TTD22) and one modern durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum cv. Kızıltan) genotypes were compared upon 9-day drought stress using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and nano-scale liquid chromatographic electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry methods. The three genotypes compared exhibit distinctive physiological responses to drought as previously shown by our group. Results demonstrated that many of the proteins were common in both wild emmer and modern wheat proteomes; of which, 75 were detected as differentially expressed proteins. Several proteins identified in all proteomes exhibited drought regulated patterns of expression. A number of proteins were observed with higher expression levels in response to drought in wild genotypes compared to their modern relative. Eleven protein spots with low peptide matches were identified as candidate unique drought responsive proteins. Of the differentially expressed proteins, four were selected and further analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR at the transcriptome level to compare with the proteomic data. The present study provides protein level differences in response to drought in modern and wild genotypes of wheat that may account for the differences of the overall responses of these genotypes to drought. Such comparative proteomics analyses may aid in the better understanding of complex drought response and may suggest candidate genes for molecular breeding studies to improve tolerance against drought stress and, thus, to enhance yields.