Reprogramming of Glycine max (Soybean) Proteome in Response to Spodoptera litura (Common Cutworm)-Infestation

Glycine max (Soybean) is an oil-seed cash crop and protein-rich legume with great therapeutic and nutritional potential. Soybean is cultivated worldwide for human food and raw material for industries. The polyphagous herbivore, Spodoptera litura (common cutworm) can cause significant loss to soybean production; making it mandatory to understand the underlying defense mechanisms. In order to decipher the induced plant defense orchestration of soybean in response to S. litura-infestation, a feeding bioassay was conducted, which identified a mild-induced defense upon S. litura-infestation. Further, a comparative proteomics of soybean (Pusa-9712) identified 390 differentially abundant proteins (DAPs) wherein 154 are upregulated whereas 236 are downregulated at log-fold change ≥ 1 and p-value ≤ 0.05. The function-prediction investigations revealed that most of the DAPs were involved in secondary metabolite biosynthesis, protein synthesis, amino acid metabolism, biotic and abiotic stresses, cell wall organisation, transcription and trans-regulation activities. Mapman analysis showed roles of DAPs in the upregulation of a few phenylpropanoid-related proteins, PR-proteins, peroxidases and proteases whereas repression of many of the DAPs involved in biosynthesis of other phenylpropanoids, lignin, anthocyanins, dihydroflavanols, components of shikimate pathways, cell wall proteins and signalling cascades, indicating inadequate plant defense against S. litura-infestation. These DAPs involved in secondary metabolism, reactive oxygen homeostasis and signalling pathway could be potential candidates for further functional analysis and can be selected for genetic manipulation towards improving defense against S. litura-infestation.