Method development for analysis of proteins extracted from the leaves of Orthosiphon aristatus

Orthosiphon aristatus is a traditionally used medicinal plant. In order to study the proteome of the plant, we have developed a simple plant protein extraction method by direct extraction of protein using a modified 2D-gel compatible tris–sucrose buffer followed by a double TCA–acetone precipitation. This method omitted the use of toxic phenol which is widely used in the studies of plants proteins. Moreover, it shortens the lengthy extraction procedure of phenol extraction and back-extraction method and therefore reduced the extraction time (by 2 h) while increased in protein yields (by 50%). Comparison of the 2D-gel images of the two extracts revealed that >60 extra protein spots were detected in the extract of our current method. The method was applied on the leaves of O. aristatus collected from six geographical areas in Malaysia. The correlation coefficient of each replicate gels from the six areas ranged from 0.70 to 0.90 indicating good reproducibility of the method.