Prediction of functions for two LEA proteins from mung bean

Triticum aestivum WRAB18 functions in plastids and confers abiotic stress tolerance when overexpressed in Escherichia coli and Nicotiania benthamiana

WRAB18, an ABA-inducible protein belongs to the third family of late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins which can be induced by different biotic or abiotic stresses. In the present study, WRAB18 was cloned from the Zhengyin 1 cultivar of Triticum aestivum and overexpressed in Escherichia coli to explore its effects on the growth of E. coli under different abiotic stresses. Results suggested the enhanced exhibition of tolerance of E. coli to these stresses. Meanwhile, the WRAB18-transgenic tobacco plants were obtained to analyze the stress-related enzymatic activities of ascorbate peroxidase (APX), peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD), and to quantify the content of malonaldehyde (MDA) under osmotic stress, high salinity, and low and high temperature stress. The activities of APX, POD and SOD in the transgenic tobacco lines were higher while the content of MDA was lower than those of WT lines. Moreover, plastid localization of WRAB18 in Nicotiana benthamiana plasma cells were found fusing with GFP. In addition, purified WRAB18 protein protected LDH (Lactate dehydrogenase) enzyme activity in vitro from various stress conditions. In brief, WRAB18 protein shows protective action behaving as a "molecular shield" in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells under various abiotic stresses, not only during ABA stress.

Transcriptome characterization and differential expression analysis of cold-responsive genes in young spikes of common wheat

With the frequent occurrence of climatic anomalies, spring frost has become a significant limiting factor on wheat production, especially during the reproductive growth stage. A high-throughput sequencing technology was applied and a total of 54 million clean reads that corresponded to 7.44 Gb of total nucleotides were generated. These reads were then de novo assembled into 120,715 unigenes with an average length of 627 bp. Functional annotations were then obtained by aligning all unigenes with public protein databases. In total, 9657 potential EST-SSRs were identified, and 6310 primer pairs for 1329 SSRs were obtained. Meanwhile, a comparison of four tag-based digital gene expression libraries, which was built from the control and cold-treated young spikes were performed. Overall, 526 up-regulated and 489 down-regulated genes were identified, and GO and KEGG pathway analyses of those genes were further conducted. Based on these results, a series of candidate genes involved in cold response pathways were identified, and 12 of them were confirmed by qRT-PCR. The combination of RNA-Seq and digital gene expression analysis in this study provides a powerful approach for investigating the transcriptional changes and obtained a large number of unigenes annotated to public databases.

Transcriptome profiling of the cold response and signaling pathways in Lilium lancifolium

Background

Lilium lancifolium, a very important cold-resistant wild flower for lily cold resistance breeding, is widely distributed in southwestern and northeastern China. To gain a better understanding of the cold signaling pathway and the molecular metabolic reactions involved in the cold response, we performed a genome-wide transcriptional analysis using RNA-Seq.

Results

Approximately 104,703 million clean 90- bp paired-end reads were obtained from three libraries (CK 0 h, Cold-treated 2 h and 16 h at 4°C); 18,736 unigenes showed similarity to known proteins in the Swiss-Prot protein database, and 15,898, 13,705 and 1849 unigenes aligned to existing sequences in the KEGG and COG databases (comprising 25 COG categories) and formed 12 SOM clusters, respectively. Based on qRT-PCR results, we studied three signal regulation pathways —the Ca²⁺ and ABA independent/dependent pathways —that conduct cold signals to signal transduction genes such as LlICE and LlCDPK and transcription factor genes such as LlDREB1/CBF, LlAP2/EREBP, LlNAC1, LlR2R3-MYB and LlBZIP, which were expressed highly in bulb. LlFAD3, Llβ-amylase, LlP5CS and LlCLS responded to cold and enhanced adaptation processes that involve changes in the expression of transcripts related to cellular osmoprotectants and carbohydrate metabolism during cold stress.

Conclusions

Our study of differentially expressed genes involved in cold-related metabolic pathways and transcription factors facilitated the discovery of cold-resistance genes and the cold signal transcriptional networks, and identified potential key components in the regulation of the cold response in L lancifolium, which will be most beneficial for further research and in-depth exploration of cold-resistance breeding candidate genes in lily.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-203) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

De novo sequencing and transcriptome analysis of the desert shrub, Ammopiptanthus mongolicus, during cold acclimation using Illumina/Solexa

Background

Ammopiptanthus mongolicus (Maxim. ex Kom.) Cheng f., an evergreen broadleaf legume shrub, is distributed in Mid-Asia where the temperature can be as low as −30°C during the winter. Although A. mongolicus is an ideal model to study the plant response to cold stress, insufficient genomic resources for this species are available in public databases. To identify genes involved in cold acclimation (a phenomenon experienced by plants after low temperature stress), a high-throughput sequencing technology was applied.

Results

We sequenced cold-treated and control (untreated) samples of A. mongolicus, and obtained 65,075,656 and 67,287,120 high quality reads, respectively. After de novo assembly and quantitative assessment, 82795 all-unigenes were finally generated with an average length of 816 bp. We then obtained functional annotations by aligning all-unigenes with public protein databases including NR, SwissProt, KEGG and COG. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were investigated using the RPKM method. Overall, 9309 up-regulated genes and 23419 down-regulated genes were identified. To increase our understanding of these DEGs, we performed GO enrichment and metabolic pathway enrichment analyses. Based on these results, a series of candidate genes involved in cold responsive pathways were selected and discussed. Moreover, we analyzed transcription factors, and found 720 of them are differentially expressed. Finally, 20 of the candidate genes that were up-regulated and known to be associated with cold stress were examined using qRT-PCR.

Conclusions

In this study, we identified a large set of cDNA unigenes from A. mongolicus. This is the first transcriptome sequencing of this non-model species under cold-acclimation using Illumina/Solexa, a next-generation sequencing technology. We sequenced cold-treated and control (untreated) samples of A. mongolicus and obtained large numbers of unigenes annotated to public databases. Studies of differentially expressed genes involved in cold-related metabolic pathways and transcription factors facilitate the discovery of cold-resistance genes.

Zinc induces disorder-to-order transitions in free and membrane-associated Thellungiella salsuginea dehydrins TsDHN-1 and TsDHN-2: a solution CD and solid-state ATR-FTIR study

Dehydrins are intrinsically unstructured proteins that are expressed in plants experiencing extreme environmental conditions such as drought or low temperature. Although their role is not completely understood, it has been suggested that they stabilize proteins and membrane structures during environmental stress and also sequester metals such as zinc. Here, we investigate two dehydrins (denoted as TsDHN-1 and TsDHN-2) from Thellungiella salsuginea. This plant is a crucifer that thrives in the Canadian sub-Arctic (Yukon Territory) where it grows on saline-rich soils and experiences periods of both extreme cold and drought. We show using circular dichroism and attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy that ordered secondary structure is induced and stabilized in these proteins, both in free and vesicle-bound form, by association with zinc. In membrane-associated form, both proteins have an increased proportion of β-strand conformation induced by the cation, in addition to the amphipathic α-helices formed by their constituent K-segments. These results support the hypothesis that dehydrins stabilize plant plasma and organellar membranes in conditions of stress, and further that zinc may be an important co-factor in stabilization. Whereas dehydrins in the cytosol of a plant cell undergoing dehydration or temperature stress form bulk hydrogels and remain primarily disordered, dehydrins with specific membrane- or protein-associations will have induced ordered secondary structures.

Interactions of intrinsically disordered Thellungiella salsuginea dehydrins TsDHN-1 and TsDHN-2 with membranes — synergistic effects of lipid composition and temperature on secondary structure

Dehydrins are intrinsically disordered (unstructured) proteins that are expressed in plants experiencing stressful conditions such as drought or low temperature. Dehydrins are typically found in the cytosol and nucleus, but also associate with chloroplasts, mitochondria, and the plasma membrane. Although their role is not completely understood, it has been suggested that they stabilize proteins or membrane structures during environmental stress, the latter association mediated by formation of amphipathic α-helices by conserved regions called the K-segments. Thellungiella salsuginea is a crucifer that thrives in the Canadian sub-Arctic (Yukon Territory) where it grows on saline-rich soils and experiences periods of both extreme cold and drought. We have cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli two dehydrins from this plant, denoted TsDHN-1 (acidic) and TsDHN-2 (basic). Here, we show using transmission-Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy that ordered secondary structure is induced and stabilized in these proteins by association with large unilamellar vesicles emulating the lipid compositions of plant plasma and organellar membranes. Moreover, this induced folding is enhanced at low temperatures, lending credence to the hypothesis that dehydrins stabilize plant outer and organellar membranes in conditions of cold.

LEAPdb: a database for the late embryogenesis abundant proteins

Background

Late Embryogenesis Abundant Proteins database (LEAPdb) contains resource regarding LEAP from plants and other organisms. Although LEAP are grouped into several families, there is no general consensus on their definition and on their classification. They are associated with abiotic stress tolerance, but their actual function at the molecular level is still enigmatic. The scarcity of 3-D structures for LEAP remains a handicap for their structure-function relationships analysis. Finally, the growing body of published data about LEAP represents a great amount of information that needs to be compiled, organized and classified.

Results

LEAPdb gathers data about 8 LEAP sub-families defined by the PFAM, the Conserved Domain and the InterPro databases. Among its functionalities, LEAPdb provides a browse interface for retrieving information on the whole database. A search interface using various criteria such as sophisticated text expression, amino acids motifs and other useful parameters allows the retrieving of refined subset of entries. LEAPdb also offers sequence similarity search. Information is displayed in re-ordering tables facilitating the analysis of data. LEAP sequences can be downloaded in three formats. Finally, the user can submit his sequence(s). LEAPdb has been conceived as a user-friendly web-based database with multiple functions to search and describe the different LEAP families. It will likely be helpful for computational analyses of their structure - function relationships.

Conclusions

LEAPdb contains 769 non-redundant and curated entries, from 196 organisms. All LEAP sequences are full-length. LEAPdb is publicly available at http://forge.info.univ-angers.fr/~gh/Leadb/index.php.

Gene expression during oosporogenesis in heterothallic and homothallic Phytophthora

A large-scale screen for genes induced during sexual development was performed in the heterothallic oomycete Phytophthora infestans, the potato blight agent. Of 15,644 unigenes on an Affymetrix chip, 87 were induced >10-fold during mating, with 28 induced >100-fold. This was validated in independent matings using RNA blots and RT-PCR. Only 44 genes resembled sequences in GenBank. These encoded regulators such as protein kinases, protein phosphatases, and transcription factors, plus enzymes with metabolic, transport, or cell-cycle activities. Several genes were induced during both mating and asexual sporogenesis, suggesting crosstalk between those pathways. In the homothallic species P. phaseoli, 20% of the 87 genes were expressed at higher levels during conditions conducive to oosporogenesis than non-conducive conditions, while the rest were at similar levels. Many of the latter exhibited higher mRNA concentrations in P. phaseoli than in any non-mating culture of P. infestans, suggesting that part of the sexual pathway is active constitutively in homothallics.