Comparative proteomics reveals that central metabolism changes are associated with resistance against Sporisorium scitamineum in sugarcane

BACKGROUND: Sugarcane smut, which is caused by Sporisorium scitamineum, has been threatening global sugarcane production. Breeding smut resistant sugarcane varieties has been proven to be the most effective method of controlling this particular disease. However, a lack of genome information of sugarcane has hindered the development of genome-assisted resistance breeding programs. Furthermore, the molecular basis of sugarcane response to S. scitamineum infection at the proteome level was incomplete and combining proteomic and transcriptional analysis has not yet been conducted. RESULTS: We identified 273 and 341 differentially expressed proteins in sugarcane smut-resistant (Yacheng05-179) and susceptible (ROC22) genotypes at 48 h after inoculation with S. scitamineum by employing an isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ). The proteome quantitative data were then validated by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). The integrative analysis showed that the correlations between the quantitative proteins and the corresponding genes that was obtained in our previous transcriptome study were poor, which were 0.1502 and 0.2466 in Yacheng05-179 and ROC22, respectively, thereby revealing a post-transcriptional event during Yacheng05-179-S. scitamineum incompatible interaction and ROC22-S. scitamineum compatible interaction. Most differentially expressed proteins were closely related to sugarcane smut resistance such as beta-1,3-glucanase, peroxidase, pathogenesis-related protein 1 (PR1), endo-1,4-beta-xylanase, heat shock protein, and lectin. Ethylene and gibberellic acid pathways, phenylpropanoid metabolism and PRs, such as PR1, PR2, PR5 and PR14, were more active in Yacheng05-179, which suggested of their possible roles in sugarcane smut resistance. However, calcium signaling, reactive oxygen species, nitric oxide, and abscisic acid pathways in Yacheng05-179 were repressed by S. scitamineum and might not be crucial for defense against this particular pathogen. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicated complex resistance-related events in sugarcane-S. scitamineum interaction, and provided novel insights into the molecular mechanism underlying the response of sugarcane to S. scitamineum infection. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-3146-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.