Development of Agricultural Proteomics and Its Applications to Production of Environmental Stress-Tolerant Crops

Abstract

Food shortages are one of the most serious problems caused by global warming and population growth in this century; consequently, it is important to increase food production. Especially, climate changes influence the magnitude and frequency of hydrological fluctuations, which create an unfavorable environment for the growth and development of crops. Because the accurate analysis of a large number of proteins promotes the knowledge of biological systems, gel-free/label-free proteomics has been performed on agricultural materials. Based on the results from proteomic analyses, the roles of key proteins in crops related to stress tolerance were carefully confirmed with molecular biological techniques. These approaches contribute to not only understanding stress-tolerant mechanisms in crops, but also producing crops with environmental-stress tolerance.