An Efficient Organic Solvent Based Extraction Method for the Proteomic Analysis of <italic>Arabidopsis</italic> Plasma Membranes

Membrane proteins are involved in diverse cellular processes and are an integral component of many signaling cascades, but due to their highly hydrophobic nature and the complexities associated with studying these proteins in planta, alternative methods are being developed to better characterize these proteins on a proteome-wide scale. In our previous work (Mitra, S. K.et al. J. Proteome Res. 2007, 6, (5), 1933-50), methanol-assisted solubilization was determined to facilitate the identification of both hydrophobic and hydrophilic membrane proteins compared to Brij-58 solubilization and was particularly effective for leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases (LRR RLKs). To improve peptide identification and to overcome sample losses after tryptic digestion, we have developed an effective chloroform extraction method to promote plasma membrane protein identification. The use of chloroform extraction over traditional solid-phase extraction (SPE) prior to off-line strong cation exchange liquid chromatography (SCXC) and reversed-phase liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) analysis facilitated the removal of chlorophylls, major contaminants of plant tissue preparations that can affect downstream analysis, in addition to the effective removal of trypsin used in the digestion. On the basis of a statistically derived 5% false discovery rate, the chloroform extraction procedure increased the identification of unique peptides for plasma membrane proteins over SPE by 70% which produced nearly a 2-fold increase in detection of membrane transporters and LRR RLKs without increased identification of contaminating Rubisco and ribosomal peptides. Overall, the combined use of methanol and chloroform provides an effective method to study membrane proteins and can be readily applied to other tissues and cells types for proteomic analysis.