[
East Asia Worm Meeting,
2010]
Caenorhabditis briggsae is closely related to C. elegans, which is a model multicellular organism. These 2 species diverged from a common ancestor about 100 million years ago and share several characteristics such as overall morphology, hybridization system, and genes; they differ in terms of optimal growing temperature and intergenic regions. A comparative analysis of these 2 species is expected to generate new evolutionary knowledge. In recent years, in order to understand life phenomena, many proteomic analyses have been performed to exhaustively investigate proteins, which are the primary driving workforces in life phenomena, because the genome cannot be completely understood by using current technology. C. briggsae has rarely been studied in proteomics, although C. elegans has been well studied.In this study, we identified and quantitatively analyzed the expression profiles of proteins expressed during the different developmental stages in C. briggsae-embryo stage, larval 1 stage (L1), and adult stage. Age-synchronized embryos, L1 larvae, and adult individuals of C. briggsae were collected 3 times by using the alkali-bleach method. The collected samples were analyzed using two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE). The spots (proteins) were detected and matched among gels by using image analysis software. We focused on highly reproducible spots, i.e., spots that were detected on at least 2 of all the 3 gels for a particular developmental stage. We obtained 569, 811, and 802 highly reproducible spots in the embryo, L1, and adult stages, respectively; of these spots, 32, 119, and 130 spots were specific to each stage. Ninety proteins expressed at high levels were identified using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The identified proteins were classified on the basis of the Gene Ontology database. Many proteins were found to have ""metabolic process"" and ""cellular process"" functions. To perform a more exhaustive analysis with a higher throughput, we are currently performing a shotgun analysis for the 3 stages of C. briggsae by using LC-MS/MS.