This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Plants—like people—come in all shapes and sizes. And just like scientists want to understand the components of the human body to treat disease and improve our lives, they also want to understand how plants thrive, develop disease, succumb or survive.
It's a real problem that affects us, too. One powerful way scientists investigate these questions is through proteomics, the study of the proteins that live and work inside cells. This is true whether the proteins are found in a human, an animal, a plant or a virus.
While much ground has been gained in understanding human biology using proteomics, progress has been slower for those studying plants. This is because plant tissues (think leaves, pollen, seeds) have a hard exterior shell and a thick cell wall to protect the proteins and other essential components inside and to keep unwanted materials out. These protections serve a purpose but also create a barrier, scientifically speaking.
Now, in an article published in the journal Plant Physiology, University of Delaware researchers report a validated method to digest proteins inside intact plant cells, overcoming this long-standing hurdle in plant proteomics. Yanbao Yu, director of proteomics in UD's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, said it represents a "breakthrough for the plant proteomics community" that opens a new window for plant biology to answer previously difficult-to-study questions. For example, the ability to detect proteins that respond significantly could provide a biomarker to indicate that a plant has a particular bacterial or fungal infection, Yu said, or potentially lead to ways to deliver proteins as a treatment to help cells recover from disease.
He hopes the approach can inform the agricultural community's bottom line. "Plant infection is an economically important problem for agriculture," said Yu. "With this new method to study plant infection, we can identify biologically meaningful infection-related proteins that can improve agriculture." He previously demonstrated the UD-developed technology's effectiveness in simple cell lines.
Traditionally, researchers studying plant proteins must first grind up the tissue using a mortar and pestle and put it through a series of chemical processing steps to isolate the proteins they want to study. The process can take days, and valuable material can be lost along the way. Yu's method takes a different approach.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
