Barley is the most important material for malting and brewing, and the fourth major cereal being produced globally second in Australian cereal production. Plant breeding approaches aim to incorporate desired traits for industry benefit, including optimised seed germination and maturation, and end-use in malting and brewing.
Protein content is one of the crucial parameters that affects and determines barley’s final application. In this research, a bottom-up mass spectrometry approach is used to investigate the proteome of twenty barley lines to inform the barley breeding program. Selected barley lines with different protein profiles have been studied to explore the relationship between proteins and traits. To identify proteins in these barley lines, a data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and a gas phase fractionation method was applied to a pooled biological quality control sample (PBQC). The results showed that by applying gas phase fractionation a higher number of proteins were identified (22%). This method was used to acquire data to generate the spectral library that will be used for global quantitative proteomics to identify those proteins that are linked with desirable malting characteristics and the high protein trait. The obtained result will assist in understanding how genetic and quantitative variability in protein content and composition affects the use of these experimental barley lines in food and beverage products.