COMPARATIVE PROTEOMIC ANALYSIS OF TOMATO FRUIT MEMBRANE PROTEINS DIFFERENTIALLY EXPRESSED DURING RIPENING

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the most important vegetable crops and a model system for fleshy fruit development. A label-free quantitative proteomic approach was performed to identify differentially expressed proteins in the microsomal fraction at two stages of tomato fruit ripening (mature-green, red). Total microsomes were prepared by differential centrifugation, and proteins were analyzed by 1DE-LC-MS/MS. Mass spectrometric data from three independent replicates were processed in the MaxQuant environment using stringent criteria leading to the identification of 1317 proteins, among which 583 were quantified by label-free quantitation of ion chromatograms. The data indicate differential expression of several classes of proteins, including those involved in cell wall biogenesis and metabolism, signalling, photosynthesis and energy metabolism, sugar, aminoacid and lipid metabolism, protein synthesis and degradation, protein trafficking and folding, secondary metabolite production, response to stress. Altogether, the data provide new insights on the ripening process in tomato fruit and deepen our knowledge of the plant membrane proteome.