Genetic modifications to soybean have become inevitable to meet increasing demand. To ensure the safety of the crop for consumers, it is important to determine the natural variation in seed proteins, and any unintended changes that may occur resulting from genetic modification. Advances in proteomic technologies allowed for analysis of changes in protein profiles. We applied these technologies to determine the spectrum of proteins in soybean seed. We used two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry, and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to quantify and to identify different classes of soybean seed proteins. We observed significant variations of different classes of proteins between soybean varieties and differences in protein quantity and number of protein subunits among 27 soybean genotypes planted in three field experiments. This information is useful to determine whether the unintended expression of proteins found in transgenic soybean is within the range of natural variation.

Assessment of the natural variation of soybean protein expression through proteomics

244th National Meeting (2012)

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