Membrane protein profiling of Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae under various growth conditions

Membrane proteins (MPs) of plant pathogenic bacteria have been reported to be able to regulate many essential cellular processes associated with plant disease. The aim of the current study was to examine and compare the expression of MPs of the rice bacterial pathogen Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae strain RS-1 under Luria-Bertani (LB) medium, M9 medium, in vivo rice plant conditions and leaf extract (LE) medium mimicking in vivo plant condition. Proteomic analysis identified 95, 72, 75, and 87 MPs under LB, in vivo, M9 and LE conditions, respectively. Among them, six proteins were shared under all tested growth conditions designated as abundant class of proteins. Twenty-six and 21 proteins were expressed uniquely under in vivo versus LB medium and LE versus M9 medium, respectively, with 17 proteins common among these uniquely induced proteins. Moreover, most of the shared proteins are mainly related to energy metabolism, transport of small molecules, protein synthesis and secretion as well as virulence such as NADH, OmpA, secretion proteins. Therefore, the result of this study not only suggests that it may be an alternate method to analyze the in vivo expression of proteins by using LE medium to mimic plant conditions, but also reveals that the two sets of differentially expressed MPs, in particular the common MPs between them, might be important in energy metabolism, stress response and virulence of A. avenae subsp. avenae strain RS-1.