Variations in the Proteome along the Yellow Pea Processing Chain

Field peas, despite being increasingly used in food processing, have not undergone detailed proteomics characterization, particularly in response to processing. Here, data-independent acquisition (DIA) mass spectrometry was used to measure quantitative proteomics of Pisum sativum L. (cultivar CDC Lewochko) across dehulling and milling, dry fractionation and wet fractionation processing stages. 3692 proteins were identified, of which 1796 were differentially abundant (1% false discovery rate) among the processing conditions, with many varying in distinct clusters. DIA LC-MS/MS allowed analysis of proteome changes at the level of total protein, select subgroups of proteins and individual proteins. This revealed that, in certain cases, the variation in a single protein can drive the apparent change in the entire subgroup. Various structural and techno-functional attributes were also investigated to correlate protein quantities with phenotypic traits. These findings yield quantitative insight into how processing methods, particularly wet extraction, selectively influence protein composition.