A day in the life of plants: Proteomic insights into plant growth and development

As sessile organisms, plants are incredibly mindful of their time. As a result, they extensively regulate cellular and physiological processes through a combination of circadian (anticipatory) and light‐responsive (reactive) mechanisms in order to adapt to their changing daily environment and to respond to stress. To date, our understanding of diel plant cell regulation has largely been derived from a combination of genetic and transcriptomic analysis; however, advancements in mass spectrometry driven quantitative proteomics offers an exciting new frontier of discovery to better understand the plant cellular environment. In this pursuit, we have developed new proteome acquisition workflows that better address the unique high complexity, high dynamic range nature of plant samples, in order to improve our ability to quantify lower abundant proteins of interest (e.g. protein kinases and transcription factors). We are particularly focused on deploying these workflows to define a proteome-centric understanding of how plant diel biology intersects with abiotic stress response in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

 

Learning Objectives