Chickpea Heat stress LC-MS - proteome data analysis

Understanding the molecular differences in plant genotypes contrasting for heat sensitivity can provide useful insights into the mechanisms that confer heat tolerance in plants. This study is focused on comparative physiological and proteomic analyses of heat sensitive (ICC16374) and tolerant (JG14) genotypes of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) when subjected to heat stress at anthesis.Comparative gel-free proteome profiles indicated differences in the expression levels and regulation of common proteins that are associated with heat tolerance in contrasting genotypes under heat stress. The differentially regulated proteins were grouped into three categories based on their involvement in the molecular functions, cellular location and biological processes. Besides the identification of heat shock proteins, other proteins such as acetyl-CoA carboxylase, pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthase (P5CS), ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCo), phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) 2, ATP synthase, glycosyltransferase, sucrose synthase and late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins were strongly associated with heat tolerance in chickpea. Several crucial proteins such as cystathionine gamma-synthase, glucose-1-phosphate adenyltransferas, malate dehydrogenase, threonine synthase, and non-cyanogenic ß-glucosidase were induced by heat only in the heat tolerant genotype. Based on pathway analysis, we propose that proteins which are essentially related to the electron transport chain in photosynthesis, aminoacid biosynthesis, ribosome synthesis and secondary metabolite synthesis may play key roles in inducing tolerance to heat stress.