Mass-spectrometry-based draft of the Arabidopsis proteome

Protein atlas of model plant now available

30 June 2020

Researchers now have a quantitative atlas of the expression, modification and interactions of proteins in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

A. thaliana’s genome was sequenced two decades ago and its genetics have been extensively studied, leading to great advances in our understanding of plant biology. But much less is known about its proteome.

The new atlas, developed by a team led by researchers at the Technical University of Munich, was constructed using a combination of mass spectroscopy and RNA sequencing. It incorporates the levels of genetic transcripts and proteins across different tissues.

Using the database, the researchers discovered that the range of protein-expression levels vary by a million-fold. They also identified a variation in protein-to-transcript abundance levels that points towards differences in the efficiency of translation or the stability of transcripts or proteins.

This resource, which is available online for free, will help researchers better understand the biological processes in plants through investigating individual proteins and their role in pathways.

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References

1. Nature 578, 409–414 (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2094-2