Shotgun proteomics of quinoa seeds reveals chitinases enrichment under rainfed conditions

Abstract

Quinoa is an Andean crop whose cultivation has been extended to many different parts of the world in the last decade. It shows a great capacity for adaptation to diverse climate conditions, including environmental stressors, and, moreover, the seeds are very nutritious in part due to their high protein content, which is rich in essential amino acids. They are gluten-free seeds and contain good amounts of other nutrients such as unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, or minerals. Also, the use of quinoa hydrolysates and peptides has been linked to numerous health benefits. Altogether, these aspects have situated quinoa as a crop able to contribute to food security worldwide. Aiming to deepen our understanding of the protein quality and function of quinoa seeds and how they can vary when this crop is subjected to water-limiting conditions, a shotgun proteomics analysis was performed to obtain the proteomes of quinoa seeds harvested from two different water regimes in the field: rainfed and irrigated conditions. Differentially increased levels of proteins determined in seeds from each field condition were analysed, and the enrichment of chitinase-related proteins in seeds harvested from rainfed conditions was found. These proteins are described as pathogen-related proteins and can be accumulated under abiotic stress. Thus, our findings suggest that chitinase-like proteins in quinoa seeds can be potential biomarkers of drought. Also, this study points to the need for further research to unveil their role in conferring tolerance when coping with water-deficient conditions.

Genomic basis of seed colour in quinoa inferred from variant patterns using extreme gradient boosting

“…In total, 21 of the 41 genes were annotated with functions and GO terms, with 40% of them directly related to reproduction or seed development (Table S6 ). We used publicly available shotgun proteomics (Poza‐Viejo et al ., 2023 ) and transcriptomics (Grimberg et al ., 2022 ) data from quinoa seeds to assess the expression of the 41 candidate genes. Our results showed that 27 of the 41 candidates could be detected in the proteome and 39 of the 41 candidate genes could be detected in the transcriptome.…”

“…We analysed these genes for similarity and found that no gene within the identified cytochrome P450 gene cluster on CquChr18 is an ortholog of CYP76AD1. Along this line, we could not detect quinoa CYP76AD1 expression in recently published shotgun proteomics data from quinoa seeds (Poza‐Viejo et al ., 2023 ). Thus, our data link seed colour to a novel cytochrome P450 gene cluster that is unrelated to CYP76AD1.…”

Transcriptional survey of abiotic stress response in maize (Zea mays) in the level of gene co-expression network and differential gene correlation analysis

“…Chitinases are known to play a pivotal role in several abiotic stress responses in plants, encompassing phenomena such as wounding, osmotic stress, cold, heavy metal stress and salt stress. These enzymes have a crucial role in both defense-related systems and the improvement of abiotic stress tolerance in plants ( Liu et al 2020 ; Vaghela et al 2022 ; Poza-Viejo et al 2023 ). Further information can be obtained from a complicated network by identifying important hubs and modules while taking into account network characteristics such as relative graphlet frequency distribution, degree distribution, diameter and clustering, ( Pržulj et al 2004 ).…”

Proteomic profile of tepary bean seed storage proteins in germination with low water potential

“…However, over the last 20 years, there has been increasing interest in using mass spectrometry for proteins to elucidate the relationship between proteins and specific molecular interactions [ 14 ]. Several reports on the use of Shotgun proteomics have been conducted to study complex peptide fractions generated after protein proteolytic digestion in plants, including leaves of common bean [ 15 ] and seeds of barley [ 16 ], pea [ 17 ], Brassica [ 18 ], and quinoa [ 19 ]. However, some of the recent advances in the proteomics field, such as shotgun proteomics, have yet to be explored in species used in improving abiotic stress tolerance.…”