Differential organ specific protein profiling in chickpea cultivars under water deficit stress

Chickpea is an important legume crop but its yield is highly affected by water deficit stress. It has been reported that many proteins related to stress/defence/detoxification, carbohydrate metabolism and photosynthesis are crucial for imparting water deficit stress tolerance to crops but the correlation between the expression of induced proteins and the level of stress tolerance has not been explored. In this study, we have reported proteomic changes in different tissues of two chickpea cultivars differing in drought tolerance capacity ICC4958 (drought tolerant) and ILC3279 (drought susceptible) at different developmental stages under field and at 7 days after germination (DAG) under laboratory conditions. An insight into the proteomic changes of these two chickpea cultivars revealed that average polypeptide expression under stress was up regulated and down regulated in underground system of ICC4958 and ILC3279, respectively, as compared to control which affected the protein expression in aboveground tissues. More pronounced increase in polypeptide expression in leaves of ICC4958 under stress was observed at 80 DAS, the stage corresponding to initiation of reproductive development while stress in leaves of ILC3279 resulted in decreased overall protein expression. This was ultimately reflected in enhanced protein expression under water deficit stress in mature seeds of ICC4958 as compared to ILC3279. The study under laboratory condition also revealed that protein expression under water deficit stress is increased on an average in ICC4958 and reduced in ILC3279.