Soybean Proteomics

Although research on non-legume model species such as Arabidopsis thaliana and rice provides insight into many fundamental aspects of plant biology, it cannot address some important aspects of legume biology. Legumes are of immense importance to human and are an important crop for sustainable agriculture. Two model species, Lotus japonicas and Medicago truncatula, would have been the focus of genome sequencing and functional genomics programmes. Unfortunately, agricultural legumes are relatively poor model systems for genetics and genomics research. Even though soybean is an important crop to supply a major portion of the world's demand for vegetable oil and protein, the sequencing of the soybean genome is in its infancy. So, proteomics would be a powerful tool for its functional analysis. The purpose of this review is to discuss the strength and weaknesses of proteomics technologies and limitations of current techniques for soybean biology.