Authors : Haili Li, Yuanying Yu, Rui Gao, Jianhua Wang, Guodong Yang, Zijun Yang, Deanna Baucom and Rebecca Creamer
Abstract: The locoweed plant (Astragalus) is a widely distributed toxic plant in many rangeland regions around the world. It is well known that locoweed plants can produce the alkaloid swainsonine which inhibits α-mannosidases and causing neurological poisonings problems through the consumption of locoweed. Locoweed poisoned grazing animal’s exhibit symptoms of locoism. Locoism was caused by locoweed is one of the most destructive disease of rangeland. Recent studies shown that swainsonine was produced by endophytic Undifilum cinereum which was isolated from Astragalus locoweed (Astragalus mollissimus and Astragalus lentiginosus sp.) and responsible for locoism in grazing animals. The toxicosis effect of U. oxytropis fungi on rats is indistinguishable from locoweed toxicosis on rats. The mechanisms of swainsonine underlying U. cinereum and locoweed are poorly understood. To gain a better understanding of the swainsonine biosynthesis in U. cinereum and to facilitate management of locoweed poisoning problems, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) was performed. The 2-DE is a promising tool to study the protein expression profiling and metabolic pathway. To researchers knowledge the present study was the first proteomic reference map using immobilized pH gradients of U. cinereum. To identify proteins in U. cinereum, proteins extracted from mycelial were separated by 2-DE and IEF, digestion and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with an LTQ ion trap mass spectrometer (Thermo Scientific, Waltham, MA). Samples were analyzed by LC-MS/MS and identified using MASCOT MS/MS search in protein databases.
Haili Li, Yuanying Yu, Rui Gao, Jianhua Wang, Guodong Yang, Zijun Yang, Deanna Baucom and Rebecca Creamer, 2012. Analysis of Secreted Proteins from Undifilum cinereum by Two Dimensional Gel Electrophoresis and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 11: 1881-1889.