Membrane Proteomic Responses in Sugar Beet Roots to Salt Stress

Salt stress as one of the major abiotic stresses limits the world crop production. Sugar beet monosomic addition line M14 is a unique germplasm with salt stress tolerance, and root is directly exposed to salt stress in the soil. Here we report changes in root membrane proteome of the M14 plants in response to 0, 200 mM and 400 mM NaCl treatment using iTRAQ LC-MS/MS quantitative proteomics. A total of 115 differentially expressed membrane proteins (96 increased and 19 decreased) were identified with a significant fold change of >2.0. The proteins were mainly involved in the processes of transport, signaling, stress and defense, energy, protein degradation, and transcription. Transcriptional changes of 10 genes encoding the differential membrane proteins were analyzed using real-time PCR, and seven genes showed a positive correlation between transcriptional and protein levels. These results have revealed interesting mechanisms underlying the M14 root response to the salt stress, which may have potential applications toward improving crop salt tolerance through genetic engineering and molecular breeding.