Differential proteomic analysis of apoplastic proteins during initial phase of salt stress in rice

The plant cell apoplast, which consists of all the compartments beyond the plasma membrane, is implicated in a variety of functions during plant growth and development as well as in plant defence responses to stress conditions. To evaluate the role of apoplastic proteins in initial phase of salt stress, a 2-DE based differential proteomics approach has been used to identify apoplastic salt response proteins. Six salt response proteins have been identified, among them, an apoplastic protein OsRMC, which belongs to cysteine-rich repeat receptor like protein kinase subfamily but without the kinase domain, has shown drastically increased abundance in response to salt stress during the initial phase. Our results show, OsRMC negative regulates the salt tolerance of rice plants. These results indicated that plant apoplastic proteins may have important role in plant salt stress response signal pathway.