Visualization of endoplasmic reticulum stressed cells for forward genetic studies in plants

In eukaryotes, various cellular events are attended by a risk of triggering stress in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Such risks are assumed to be minimized by sophisticated regulation systems, but the nature of these systems remains largely unknown in plants. Here, transgenic Arabidopsis plants, intended for use in forward genetic studies of plant ER stress, are described. AtBiP3 promoter activity clearly reflected the effects of inducers of ER stress, such as tunicamycin, dithiothreitol, and salicylic acid. Thus transgenic plants, containing the AtBiP3 promoter coupled to a fluorescent protein-encoding gene, were generated to enable visual detection of cells experiencing ER stress in living plants. Mutagenization of these transgenic plants produced seedlings which exhibited altered fluorescence patterns. Constitutive fluorescence was observed in a number of independent lines, suggesting the plant genome includes many genes whose mutation results in ER stress. Some mutants showed strong fluorescence with different tissue specificity, implying potential ER stresses in individual cellular events. These results indicate that forward genetic approaches will provide useful information in the understanding of ER stress.

Plastid-produced interorgannellar stress signal MEcPP potentiates induction of the unfolded protein response in endoplasmic reticulum

Cellular homeostasis in response to internal and external stimuli requires a tightly coordinated interorgannellar communication network. We recently identified methylerythritol cyclodiphosphate (MEcPP) as a novel stress-specific retrograde signaling metabolite that accumulates in response to environmental perturbations to relay information from plastids to the nucleus. We now demonstrate, using a combination of transcriptome and proteome profiling approaches, that mutant plants (ceh1) with high endogenous levels of MEcPP display increased transcript and protein levels for a subset of the core unfolded protein response (UPR) genes. The UPR is an adaptive cellular response conserved throughout eukaryotes to stress conditions that perturb the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) homeostasis. Our results suggest that MEcPP directly triggers the UPR. Exogenous treatment with MEcPP induces the rapid and transient induction of both the unspliced and spliced forms of the UPR gene bZIP60. Moreover, compared with the parent background (P), ceh1 mutants are less sensitive to the ER-stress-inducing agent tunicamycin (Tm). P and ceh1 plants treated with Tm display similar UPR transcript profiles, suggesting that although MEcPP accumulation causes partial induction of selected UPR genes, full induction is triggered by accumulation of misfolded proteins. This finding refines our perspective of interorgannellar communication by providing a link between a plastidial retrograde signaling molecule and its targeted ensemble of UPR components in ER.

The dynamic of the splicing of bZIP60 and the proteins encoded by the spliced and unspliced mRNAs reveals some unique features during the activation of UPR in Arabidopsis thaliana

The unfolded protein response (UPR) is a signaling pathway that is activated when the workload of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is surpassed. IRE1 is a sensor involved in triggering the UPR and plays a key role in the unconventional splicing of an mRNA leading to the formation of a transcription factor that up-regulates the transcription of genes that play a role in restoring the homeostasis in the ER. In plants, bZIP60 is the substrate for IRE1; however, questions such as what is the dynamics of the splicing of bZIP60 and the fate of the proteins encoded by the spliced and unspliced forms of the mRNA, remain unanswered. In the present work, we analyzed the processing of bZIP60 by determining the levels of the spliced form mRNA in plants exposed to different conditions that trigger UPR. The results show that induction of ER stress increases the content of the spliced form of bZIP60 (bZIP60s) reaching a maximum, that depending on the stimuli, varied between 30 min or 2 hrs. In most cases, this was followed by a decrease in the content. In contrast to other eukaryotes, the splicing never occurred to full extent. The content of bZIP60s changed among different organs upon induction of the UPR suggesting that splicing is regulated differentially throughout the plant. In addition, we analyzed the distribution of a GFP-tagged version of bZIP60 when UPR was activated. A good correlation between splicing of bZIP60 and localization of the protein in the nucleus was observed. No fluorescence was observed under basal conditions, but interestingly, the fluorescence was recovered and found to co-localize with an ER marker upon treatment with an inhibitor of the proteasome. Our results indicate that the dynamics of bZIP60, both the mRNA and the protein, are highly dynamic processes which are tissue-specific and stimulus-dependent.