Construction of a proteomic reference map for analysis of development of etiolated rice seedlings

When rice seedlings grow in darkness, they will be yellow in color and show typical etiolated characters such as elongation of hypocotyls and stem, rolling up of young leaves around the stem tip. To better understand the development of etiolated rice seedlings at the molecule level, a proteomic reference map of etiolated rice seedlings was established by combining Two-Dimensional Gel Electrophoresis (2DE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization–time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). In this study, a total of 1170 protein spots were detected. 200 protein spots were picked for MALDI-TOFMS analysis, and 162 proteins were chosen for further analysis and construction of the proteomic reference map. As expected, most of the chosen proteins were metabolism and energy metabolismassociated, suggesting that the early stages of development of etiolated rice seedlings involved in complex metabolic activities. We further discussed the potential functions of these proteins in the development of etiolated rice seedlings. Our data also showed that a large number of proteins had not yet been annotated in rice.