Proteomics comparative analysis of thermo-sensitive genic male-sterile rice Zhu-1S and its dwarfing variant SV14 stem

The stem of thermo-sensitive genic male-sterile rice Zhu-1S and its dwarfing variant SV14 were separated by 2-DE. Twelve differential spots were identified by MALDI-TOF-MS. In the 2-DE protein patterns of SV14, one up-regulated proteins and eleven down-regulated proteins were identified. According to the functional classification of identified proteins, they were divided into the following categories: (1) energy metabolism; (2) secondary metabolism; (3) regulatory proteins; (4) proteins with unknown function. Furthermore, semi-quantitative RT-PCR was carried out to verify the different expressions. These results shows converse changes in expression at both the RNA and protein levels. The converse changes suggest that during the process of stem development some kind of post-transcriptional modification of these genes occurred. The results show that these proteins may be related to dwarfing rice stem and provide another pathway for finding the dwarfing gene.