A proteomic analysis of salt stress response in seedlings of two African rice cultivars

Salt stress is one of the key abiotic stresses threatening future agricultural production and natural ecosystems. This study investigates the salt stress response of two rice seedlings, which were screened from 28 Kenya rice cultivars. A proteomic analysis was carried out and Mapman bin codes employed in protein function categorization. Proteins in the redox, stress, and signaling categories were identified, and whose expression differed between the salt tolerant and the salt sensitive samples employed in the present study. 104 and 102 root proteins were observed as significantly altered during salt stress in the tolerant and sensitive samples, respectively and 13 proteins were commonly expressed. Among the 13 proteins, ketol-acid reductoisomerase protein was upregulated in both 1 and 3 days of salt treatment in the tolerant sample, while it was down-regulated in both 1 and 3 days of salt treatment in the sensitive sample. Actin-7, tubulin alpha, V-type proton ATPase, SOD (Cu-Zn), SOD (Mn), and pyruvate decarboxylase were among the observed salt-induced proteins. In general, this study improves our understanding about salt stress response mechanisms in rice.