Evaluation of protein pattern changes in roots and leaves of Zea mays plants in response to nitrate availability by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis analysis

摘要

BackgroundNitrogen nutrition is one of the major factors that limit growth and production of crop plants. It affects many processes, such as development, architecture, flowering, senescence and photosynthesis. Although the improvement in technologies for protein study and the widening of gene sequences have made possible the study of the plant proteomes, only limited information on proteome changes occurring in response to nitrogen amount are available up to now. In this work, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) has been used to investigate the protein changes induced by NO3^- concentration in both roots and leaves of maize (Zea mays L.) plants. Moreover, in order to better evaluate the proteomic results, some biochemical and physiological parameters were measured.