Assessment of Global Proteome Dynamics in Carp: A Model for Investigating Environmental Stress

Fish have to respond to a range of natural and man-made environmental
stressors, which can lead to molecular changes within their tissues.
Many studies focused on environmental stress in fish have examined
the change in protein abundance or mRNA level. However, it is well-known
that there is a disconnect between mRNA and protein expression. In
order to bridge this gap, protein turnover must also be considered.
We have developed an experimental strategy to determine the synthesis
rates of individual proteins in the tissues of fish on a proteome-wide
scale. This approach has been applied to the common carp (Cyprinus carpio), a key model
species for investigating environmentally induced physiological plasticity.
We have calculated the rates of protein synthesis for over a thousand
individual proteins from the skeletal muscle and liver of carp. The
median synthesis rate of proteins from liver was higher than that
of skeletal muscle. The analysis further revealed that the same protein
can have a different rate of synthesis depending on the tissue type.
Our strategy permits a full investigation of proteome dynamics in
fish and will have relevance to the fields of integrative biology
and ecotoxicology.