Plant Proteomics and Photosynthesis

Abstract

Peptide mass finger printing and tandem mass spectrometry-based identification of proteins emerged in the mid 1990s, with its first application on the study of photosynthesis and chloroplasts about a decade ago. From there on, the impact of proteomics and protein mass spectrometry has been very significant, with initially most efforts placed on the identification of chloroplast proteins, followed by phosphorylation, comparative proteomics and work on protein-protein interactions. Most of this work has been carried out with Arabidopsis thaliana, the first plant for which the genome was sequenced. This chapter will focus on new results in proteomics of photosynthesis published since 2004, as well as on emerging concepts, challenges and opportunities to make discoveries relevant to photosynthesis. The chapter is restricted to photosynthesis and its regulatory proteins in higher plants and the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. With the exception of some small, hydrophobic thylakoid membrane proteins, most of the photosynthetic machinery has been observed by mass spectrometry, but many of the post-translational modifications remain to be discovered. One of the biggest challenges of proteomics in the area of photosynthesis will be to identify and characterize proteins with regulatory functions, and proteins involved in chloroplast development, biogenesis and adaptation.