The use of comparative quantitative proteomics analysis in rice grain-filling in determining response to moderate soil drying stress

Moderate soil drying (MSD) stress at the grain filling stage can improve grain filling efficiently and thus increase grain yield. To elucidate the molecular response of grain filling to MSD stress, a labeling LC-based quantitative proteomics approach using tandem mass tags was applied to determine the changes in leaf and grain protein abundance level at 15 days after flowering. A total of 2109 leaf proteins and 3220 grain proteins were detected, and 251 leaf proteins and 220 grain proteins were differentially expressed under MSD stress. Based on MapMan ontology, differentially expressed proteins in leaf and grain were categorized within 22 and 18 functional categories, respectively. The patterns observed were interesting in that in some categories such as photosynthesis-related protein in leaf and cell division related proteins in grain showed higher expression abundant under MSD stress, which facilities increasing the source supply and sink size. In other categories, such as carbohydrate metabolism and mitochondrial electron transport, surprisingly showed a completely different expression pattern between leaf and grain under MSD stress, which led to faster and better remobilization of carbon from leaf to grain. Additionally, the complicated functional network including the small GTP-binding proteins, calmodulin, and 14-3-3 proteins play an important role in regulation carbon remobilization mediated by the stressful signals from soil after rice plants were treated with MSD at grain-filling stage. The findings provide theoretical evidence for better quality control and scientific improvement of rice in practice.