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MASC Proteomics Subcommittee

The proteomics subcommittee of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee has been established to facilitate the coordination of international research in Arabidopsis thaliana in the area of proteomics.

Proteomics using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system has made great progress in recent years. The throughput and accuracy of protein identification techniques relies strongly on the availability of whole genome sequences. The availability of both a complete genome sequence and high quality genome annotation makes Arabidopsis thaliana an ideal system to develop new proteomics technologies and identify candidate genes for development and differentiation of plant cells. Furthermore, Arabidopsis thaliana proteomics research may serve as a paradigm for other plant proteomics research projects and the advancement of plant proteomics in general. And finally, Arabidopsis proteomics enables the development of a unique platform for plant systems biology by integrating proteomics databases with existing transcriptomics and novel metabolomics and bioinformatics initiatives.

Due to the enormous complexity of a dynamic proteome, different approaches have to be combined to measure protein expression and dynamics, stress- and developmental responses, post-translational protein modifications and protein interaction. Although the A. thaliana functional proteomics projects are progressing well in general, technical obstacles still remain to be overcome. The development of proteomics techniques for plant biology applications is showing strong progress, and some of these are probably groundbreaking methods that will be generally applicable to work in other model species. However, proteomics has not yet reached its goal. We are still in the process of initial data generation, and in the face of the enormous complexity of the dynamic proteome, substantial method development is still needed, especially in the fields of quantitative proteomics and the dissection of signaling pathways involving post-translational modification.

Therefore, this working group devoted to Arabidopsis proteomics aims to combine the efforts of different research groups to develop programs which will consolidate databases, technique standards and experimentally validated candidate genes and functions.