ITRAQ-based quantitative proteomic analysis of japonica rice seedling during cold stress

Low temperature is one of the important environmental factors that affect rice growth and yield. To better understand the japonica rice responses to cold stress, isobaric tags for a relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) labeling-based quantitative proteomics approach was used to detected changes in protein levels. Two-week-old seedlings of the cold tolerant rice variety Kongyu131 were treated at 8°C for 24, 48 and 72 h, then the total proteins were extracted from tissues and used for quantitative proteomics analysis. A total of 5082 proteins were detected for quantitative analysis, of which 289 proteins were significantly regulated, consisting of 169 uniquely up-regulated proteins and 125 uniquely down-regulated proteins in cold stress groups relative to the control group. Functional analysis revealed that most of the regulated proteins are involved in photosynthesis, metabolic pathway, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites and carbon metabolism. Western blot analysis showed that protein regulation was consistent with the iTRAQ data. The corresponding genes of 25 regulated proteins were used for quantitative real time PCR analysis, and the results showed that the mRNA level was not always parallel to the corresponding protein level. The importance of our study is that it provides new insights into cold stress responses in rice with respect to proteomics and provides candidate genes for cold-tolerance rice breeding.