Proteomic Analysis of Thylakoid Membranes

Chlamydomonas is a model organism to study photosynthesis. Thylakoid membranes comprise several proteins belonging to photosystems I and II. In this chapter, we show the accurate proteomic measurements in thylakoid membranes. The chlorophyll-containing membrane protein complexes were precipitated using chloroform/methanol solution. These complexes were separated using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, and the resolved spots were exercised from the gel matrix and digested with trypsin. These peptide fragments were separated by MALDI-TOF, and the isotopic masses were blasted to a MASCOT server to obtain the protein sequence. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF). The method discussed here would be a useful method for the separation and identification of thylakoid membrane proteins.