Following the completion of genome sequen-cing of model plants,such as rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Arabidopsis thaliana,the era of functional plant genomics has arrived which provides a solid basis for the develop-ment of plant proteomics.We review the background and concepts of proteomics,as well as the key techniques which include:(1) separation techniques such as 2-DE (two-dimensional electrophoresis),RP-HPLC (reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography) and SELDI (surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization) protein chip; (2) mass spectrometry such as MALDI-TOF-MS (matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight- mass spectrometry) and ESI-MS/MS (elec-trospray ionization mass spectrometry/mass spectro-metry); (3) Peptide sequence tags; (4) databases related to proteomics; (5) quantitative proteome; (6) TAP (tandem affinity purification) and (7) yeast two-hybrid system.In addition,the challenges and prospects of pro-teomics are also discussed.