An Integrated Proteomic and Metabolomic Study on the Chronic Effects of Mercury in Suaeda salsa under an Environmentally Relevant Salinity

Abstract

As an environmental contaminant, mercury is of great concern due to its high risk to environmental and human health. The halophyte Suaeda salsa is the dominant plant in the intertidal zones of the Yellow River Delta (YRD) where has been contaminated by mercury in some places. This study aimed at evaluating the chronic effects of mercury (Hg2+, 20 µg L−1) and the influence of an environmentally relevant salinity (NaCl, 500 mM) on mercury-induced effects in S. salsa. A total of 43 protein spots with significant changes were identified in response to Hg2+, salinity and combined Hg2+ and salinity. These proteins can be categorized into diverse functional classes, related to metabolic processes, photosynthesis, stress response, protein fate, energy metabolism, signaling pathways and immunosuppression. Metabolic responses demonstrated that Hg2+ could disturb protein and energy metabolisms in S. salsa co-exposed with or without salinity. In addition, both antagonistic and synergistic effects between Hg2+ and salinity were confirmed by differential levels of proteins (magnesium-chelatase and ribulose-l,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) and metabolites (valine, malonate, asparagine, glycine, fructose and glucose) in S. salsa. These findings suggest that a combination of proteomics and metabolomics can provide insightful information of environmental contaminant-induced effects in plants at molecular levels.

Proteomics analysis of high lipid-producing strain Mucor circinelloides WJ11: an explanation for the mechanism of lipid accumulation at the proteomic level

“…The collected mycelia were flash-frozen in liquid N 2 and stored at −80 °C. For each condition, protein extraction was performed according to a modified version of the method of Liu et al [ 51 ] and Chen et al [ 52 ]. The frozen mycelia were ground in liquid N 2 , resuspended in cold 10 % (w/v) trichloracetic acid/acetone and allowed to precipitate at −20 °C for 1 h. The samples were centrifuged at 15,000 g for 15 min at 4 °C and the supernatant was discarded.…”

Heavy Metal Tolerance in Plants: Role of Transcriptomics, Proteomics, Metabolomics, and Ionomics

“…Proteomics is a well-established technique in the post-genomic era (Liu et al, 2013 ). Proteomics deals with the study of large-scale expression of proteins in an organism encoded by its genome (Anderson and Anderson, 1998 ).…”

Plant adaptations to the combination of drought and high temperatures

“…A limited number of studies conducted proteomics analysis of plants subjected to combined stresses including drought and ozone in poplar (Bohler et al ), drought and heat in A. thaliana , barley and Carissa spinarum (Koussevitzky et al , Zhang et al , Rollins et al ), heavy metals as mercury and salinity in Suaeda salsa (Liu et al ) and high temperature and humidity in Portulaca oleracea (Yang et al ). Importantly, all transcriptomic and proteomic analyses, performed in several plant species subjected to different stress combinations, have highlighted the importance of the antioxidant defense machinery.…”