There are difficulties in detecting and separating rice prolamin polypeptides by 2D-PAGE analysis because prolamin polypeptides are insoluble, and the amino acid sequences show high homology among them. In this study, we improved the prolamin extraction method and the 2D-PAGE procedure, and succeeded in separating prolamin polypeptide species by 2D-PAGE and in identifying major prolamin polypeptide sequences.Key words: rice seed; prolamin; 2D-PAGE; amino acid sequencing Two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) is a powerful tool for the separation, quantification, and identification of proteins. Considerable research effort has been applied to the use of rice proteomic analysis to predict the functions of proteins, and much insight into the yield and quality of rice grain has been acquired. 1,2) Rice seed storage proteins consist mainly of glutelins and prolamins.3) 1D-PAGE analysis of prolamin polypeptides from isolated type I protein body (PB-I) indicated that PB-I contains 10 kDa, 13 kDa, and 16 kDa prolamins. 4) Two groups of 13 kDa prolamins have been defined: 13b prolamins were extracted in the absence of any reducing reagent, while the remaining 13a prolamins were extracted under reducing conditions similar to those used for the 10 kDa and 16 kDa prolamins. Several studies involving proteomic analysis of rice seed proteins have been reported, and albumins, globulins, and glutelins in rice seeds were well separated and identified by 2D-PAGE.5-7) However, little has been reported regarding the analysis of prolamins by 2D-PAGE. Recently, proteomic analysis of rice seeds by 2D-PAGE showed 400 protein spots, but only one spot was identified as a prolamin polypeptide.8) The reason is that the prolamins were less solubilized by a conventional lysis solution consisting of urea and non-ionic detergent for use in 2D-PAGE due to their hydrophobic property. There have been several advances recently in the methodologies of proteomic analysis, including improved protein extraction techniques.9,10) These studies indicate that a combination of urea, thiourea, and 3-[(3-cholamidopropyl)dimethylammonio]-1-propanesulfonate (CHAPS) was efficient for the extraction of highly insoluble proteins. These methods are expected to be useful in the extraction of prolamins from rice seeds. In addition, prolamin polypeptides are encoded by multi-gene families and have high homology. An NCBI database search indicated that there are three copies of 10 kDa prolamin, one copy of 16 kDa prolamin, four copies of 13a prolamin, and 13 copies of 13b prolamin. Due to this close sequence identity, it is difficult to separate prolamin polypeptides by isoelectric focusing (IEF)/SDS-PAGE. Hence we analyzed prolamin polypeptides by high-resolution nonequilibrium pH gradient gel electrophoresis (NEPHGE)/SDS-PAGE.11) In this study, we succeeded in detecting and separating several prolamin polypeptides by 2D-PAGE and in sequencing major prolamin polypeptides using an amino acid sequencer.Fifty mg of brown rice (Oryza sativa L. cv Nip...