Proteomic Analyses of Three Inflorescence Styles of Castor (Ricinus communis L.) at Different Developmental Stages

Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is one of ten oil crops in the world and has complex inflorescence styles. Generally, castor has three inflorescence types: single female inflorescence (SiFF), standard female inflorescence (StFF) and bisexual inflorescence (BF). StFF is realized as a restorer line and as a maintainer line, which was applied to castor hybrid breeding. However, the developmental mechanism of the three inflorescences is not clear. Therefore, we used proteomic techniques to analyze different inflorescence styles. A total of 72 diferentially abundant protein species (DAPs) were detected. These DAPs are primarily involved in carbon and energy metabolism and carbon fixation in the photosynthetic organism pathway. The results showed that DAPs are involved in photosynthesis to control the distribution of imported carbohydrates and exported photoassimilates and thus affect the inflorescence development of castor. In addition, these DAPs are also involved in cysteine and methionine metabolism. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) results demonstrated that the proteomics data collected in this study were reliable. Our findings indicate that the carbon cycle and amino acid metabolism influence the inflorescence development of castor.