Soybean is an important crop that is continually threatened by abiotic stresses, especially drought and heat stress. At molecular levels, reduced yields due to drought and heat stress can be seen as a result of alterations in metabolic homeostasis of vegetative tissues. At present an incomplete understanding of abiotic stress-associated metabolism and identification of associated metabolites remains a major gap in soybean stress research. A study with a goal to profile leaf metabolites under control conditions (28/24 °C), drought [28/24 °C, 10% volumetric water content (VWC)], and heat stress (43/35 °C) was conducted in a controlled environment. Analyses of non-targeted metabolomic data showed that in response to drought and heat stress, key metabolites (carbohydrates, amino acids, lipids, cofactors, nucleotides, peptides and secondary metabolites) were differentially accumulated in soybean leaves. The metabolites for various cellular processes, such as glycolysis, the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, the pentose phosphate pathway, and starch biosynthesis, that regulate carbohydrate metabolism, amino acid metabolism, peptide metabolism, and purine and pyrimidine biosynthesis, were found to be affected by drought as well as heat stress. Computationally based regulatory networks predicted additional compounds that address the possibility of other metabolites and metabolic pathways that could also be important for soybean under drought and heat stress conditions. Metabolomic profiling demonstrated that in soybeans, keeping up with sugar and nitrogen metabolism is of prime significance, along with phytochemical metabolism under drought and heat stress conditions.

Summary: A synthetic gene encoding the tandem affinity purification (TAP) tag has been constructed, and the TAP tag assayed for its effects on expression levels and subcellular localization by fusion to green fluorescent protein (GFP) as well as for its effects on steroid‐dependent translocation to the nucleus and transcription when fused to a hybrid glucocorticoid receptor. A nuclear localization signal (NLS) was detected in the calmodulin‐binding protein (CBP) domain and removed by mutation to improve the usefulness of the TAP tag. Additionally, purification improvements were made, including inhibition of a co‐purifying protease, and adding a protein cross‐linking step to increase the recovery of interacting proteins. The improved synthetic TAP tag gene and methods were used to isolate proteins interacting with the hybrid glucocorticoid receptor and to identify them by mass spectrometry. The two proteins identified, HSP70 and HSP90, are known to interact with the glucocorticoid receptor in vivo in mammalian cells and in vitro in plants.

Summary: Forty‐one rice cDNAs encoding protein kinases were fused to the tandem affinity purification (TAP) tag and expressed in transgenic rice plants. The TAP‐tagged kinases and interacting proteins were purified from the T1 progeny of the transgenic rice plants and identified by mass spectrometry. Ninety‐five percent of the TAP‐tagged kinases were recovered. Fifty‐six percent of the TAP‐tagged kinases were found to interact with other rice proteins. A number of these interactions were consistent with known protein complexes found in other species, validating the TAP‐tag method in rice plants. Phosphorylation sites were identified on four of the kinases that interacted with either 14‐3‐3 proteins or cyclins.

Drought and heat are among the major abiotic stresses that affect soybean crops worldwide. During the current investigation, the effect of drought, heat, and drought plus heat stresses was compared in the leaves of two soybean varieties, Surge and Davison, combining 2D-DIGE proteomic data with physiology and biochemical analyses. We demonstrated how 25 differentially expressed photosynthesis-related proteins affect RuBisCO regulation, electron transport, Calvin cycle, and carbon fixation during drought and heat stress. We also observed higher abundance of heat stress-induced EF-Tu protein in Surge. It is possible that EF-Tu might have activated heat tolerance mechanisms in the soybean. Higher level expressions of heat shock-related protein seem to be regulating the heat tolerance mechanisms. This study identifies the differential expression of various abiotic stress-responsive proteins that regulate various molecular processes and signaling cascades. One inevitable outcome from the biochemical and proteomics assays of this study is that increase of ROS levels during drought stress does not show significant changes at the phenotypic level in Davison and this seems to be due to a higher amount of carbonic anhydrase accumulation in the cell which aids the cell to become more resistant to cytotoxic concentrations of H₂O₂.