拟南芥SUA41基因的表达和功能分析

植物的开花受多条途径的控制, 其中包括光周期途径、春化途径、赤霉素途径、自主途径和温敏途径。SUA41(SUMO substrate in Arabidopsis 41)是本实验室筛选到的、SUMO(Small ubiquitin modifier)的潜在底物, 并且前人的研究发现它参与自主途径的开花调节, 但其对开花时间的调节机制没有详细报道。文章对SUA41基因的表达、sua41突变体对不同环境条件的反应以及SUA41对开花时间调节的可能机制进行初步分析。结果显示, 与野生型相比, sua41突变体在常温或低温、长日或者短日条件下均为早花, 并且在低温和常温下的开花时间没有太大差别。过表达SUA41能够恢复sua41突变体的早花表型。SUA41基因在拟南芥的幼苗、根、茎、叶和花以及各个植物发育阶段都有表达, 说明SUA41基因是一个组成型表达基因。SUA41基因的表达与GA处理无关, 长日低温条件能够诱导SUA41基因的表达, 且在温敏途径突变体fve和fca中SUA41基因的表达量减少。与野生型比较, sua41突变体中CO基因的mRNA表达量没有明显变化, FT和SOC1基因表达量增加且FT增加幅度更大, FLC的mRNA表达量减少。结果表明SUA41基因虽然在自主途径中起作用, 但主要在温敏途径中参与拟南芥开花时间调节。     

植物开花调控途径

开花是植物从营养生长转换为生殖生长的生理发育过程,受光周期、温度、激素、年龄等多个因素诱导,在植物生长和物种进化中处于核心地位。综合不断更新的开花分子遗传结果,将植物响应各种内源和外源信号启动开花的途径归纳为:经典的光周期途径、春化途径、自主途径、赤霉素途径和较新的年龄途径共5条。旨在描绘出这些不同途径间既独立又相互影响的复杂网络关系,为进一步探索和阐述更多植物的开花分子机理提供借鉴与参考。     

钙和水杨酸对亚高温胁迫下番茄叶片保护酶活性的调控作用

为了明确Ca²⁺和水杨酸对番茄耐亚高温特性的调控作用,在番茄第1花序第1花开花当天进行昼间亚高温（35 ℃）胁迫处理,并在亚高温处理区喷施10 mmol·L^-1CaCl₂和0.2 mmol·L^-1水杨酸（SA）水溶液,以25 ℃喷施清水为对照,研究叶片保护酶活性（SOD、POD和CAT）和可溶性蛋白质含量的变化.结果表明：亚高温处理使叶片中SOD、CAT、POD活性降低,在处理结束时,SOD、CAT、POD活性分别比对照降低了14.82%、31.84%和 26.34%.而亚高温条件下喷施CaCl₂和SA可以显著降低番茄叶片MDA含量,提高SOD、POD和CAT活性,并使这些指标达到或超过对照水平.说明Ca²⁺和水杨酸对亚高温条件下番茄植株叶片保护酶活性具有正调控作用,这种调控作用可能对亚高温条件下番茄的光合系统起到保护作用.     

MicroRNA-target Interactions: Important Signaling Modules Regulating Flowering Time in Diverse Plant Species

Successful reproduction of flowering plants requires the appropriate timing of the floral transition, as triggered by environmental and internal cues and as regulated by multiple signaling modules. Among these modules, microRNAs (miRNAs), the evolutionarily conserved regulators, respond to environmental and internal cues and network with other integrators of flowering cues. Moreover, miRNA signaling modules affect the timing of flowering in many plant species. Here, we comprehensively review recent progress in understanding the function of miRNAs and their target genes in flowering time regulation in diverse plant species. We focus on the role of the miRNA-target gene modules in various flowering pathways and their conserved and divergent functions in flowering plants. We also examine, in depth, the crosstalk by sequential activity of miR156 and miR172, two of the most-studied and evolutionarily conserved miRNAs in both annual and perennial plants.     

Stress enhances the gene expression and enzyme activity of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase and the endogenous content of salicylic acid to induce flowering in pharbitis

The involvement of salicylic acid (SA) in the regulation of stress-induced flowering in the short-day plant pharbitis (also called Japanese morning glory) Ipomoea nil (formerly Pharbitis nil) was studied. Pharbitis cv. Violet was induced to flower when grown in 1/100-strength mineral nutrient solution under non-inductive long-day conditions. All fully expanded true leaves were removed from seedlings, leaving only the cotyledons, and flowering was induced under poor-nutrition stress conditions. This indicates that cotyledons can play a role in the regulation of poor-nutrition stress-induced flowering. The expression of the pharbitis homolog of PHENYLALANINE AMMONIA-LYASE, the enzyme activity of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL; E.C. 4.3.1.5) and the content of SA in the cotyledons were all up-regulated by the stress treatment. The Violet was also induced to flower by low-temperature stress, DNA demethylation and short-day treatment. Low-temperature stress enhanced PAL activity, whereas non-stress factors such as DNA demethylation and short-day treatment decreased the activity. The PAL enzyme activity was also examined in another cultivar, Tendan, obtaining similar results to Violet. The exogenously applied SA did not induce flowering under non-stress conditions but did promote flowering under weak stress conditions in both cultivars. These results suggest that stress-induced flowering in pharbitis is induced, at least partly, by SA, and the synthesis of SA is promoted by PAL.     

Multiple roles of WIN3 in regulating disease resistance, cell death, and flowering time in Arabidopsis

The salicylic acid (SA) regulatory gene HOPW1-1-INTERACTING3 (WIN3) was previously shown to confer resistance to the biotrophic pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Here, we report that WIN3 controls broad-spectrum disease resistance to the necrotrophic pathogen Botrytis cinerea and contributes to basal defense induced by flg22, a 22-amino acid peptide derived from the conserved region of bacterial flagellin proteins. Genetic analysis indicates that WIN3 acts additively with several known SA regulators, including PHYTOALEXIN DEFICIENT4, NONEXPRESSOR OF PR GENES1 (NPR1), and SA INDUCTION-DEFICIENT2, in regulating SA accumulation, cell death, and/or disease resistance in the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) mutant acd6-1. Interestingly, expression of WIN3 is also dependent on these SA regulators and can be activated by cell death, suggesting that WIN3-mediated signaling is interconnected with those derived from other SA regulators and cell death. Surprisingly, we found that WIN3 and NPR1 synergistically affect flowering time via influencing the expression of flowering regulatory genes FLOWERING LOCUS C and FLOWERING LOCUS T. Taken together, our data reveal that WIN3 represents a novel node in the SA signaling networks to regulate plant defense and flowering time. They also highlight that plant innate immunity and development are closely connected processes, precise regulation of which should be important for the fitness of plants.     

Salicylic acid mitigates salt induced toxicity through the modifications of biochemical attributes and some key antioxidants in capsicum annuum

Abiotic stress causes extensive loss to agricultural yield production worldwide. Salt stress is one of them crucial factor which leads to decreased the agricultural production through detrimental effect on growth and development of crops. In our study, we examined the effect of a defense growth substance, salicylic acid (SA 1 mM) on mature vegetative (60 Days after sowing) and flowering (80 DAS) stage of Pusa Sadabahar (PS) variety of Capsicum annuum L. plants gown under different concentrations of NaCl (25, 50, 75, 100 and 150 mM) and maintained in identical sets in pots during the whole experiment. Physiological studies indicated that increase in root & shoot length, fresh & dry weight, number of branches per plant, and yield (number of fruits per plant) under salt + SA treatment. Biochemical studies, enzymatic antioxidants like CAT, POX, and non-enzymatic antioxidant such as ascorbic acid (AsA content), carotenoids, phenolics, besides other defense compounds like proline, protein, chlorophyll contents were studied at 10 days after treatment at the mature vegetative and flowering stage. The addition of SA led to lowering of in general, all studied parameters in the mature vegetative stage but increased the same during the flowering stage, especially in the presence of NaCl; although the control I (without SA and NaCl) remained lower in value than control II (with SA, without NaCl). Interestingly, total phenolics were higher in control I (without SA or NaCl) whereas chlorophylls were higher in treatments with SA and NaCl. Thus, physiological concentration of SA (1 mM) appears to be significantly effective against salt stress during the flowering stage. In addition, during the mature vegetative stage, however, proline accumulates in SA treated sets, to help in developing NaCl-induced drought stress tolerance.     

Focus on Chromatin/Epigenetics: Flowering Locus C’s Lessons: Conserved Chromatin Switches Underpinning Developmental Timing and Adaptation

Analysis of how seasonal cues influence the timing of the floral transition has revealed many important principles for how epigenetic regulation can integrate a variety of environmental cues with developmental signals. The study of the pathways that necessitate overwintering in plants and their ability to respond to prolonged cold (the vernalization requirement and response pathways) has elaborated different chromatin regulatory pathways and the involvement of noncoding RNAs. The major target of these vernalization pathways in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) is Flowering Locus C (FLC). A relatively simple picture of FLC regulation is emerging of a few core complexes and mechanisms that antagonize each other’s actions. This balance provides a fine degree of control that has nevertheless permitted evolution of a wide range of natural variation in vernalization in Arabidopsis. Similar simple routes of adaptation may underlie life history variation between species.The time at which different species flower is an important marker of seasonal and climatic changes and is ecologically and economically important. The sessile nature of plants means that they experience the full range of environmental changes over the seasons. Flowering time control in many species is highly responsive to environmental cues and therefore very sensitive to local climate conditions. The impact of this on many ecosystem and agricultural processes has made understanding flowering time control an important objective.Many genetic pathways influence flowering time, either as part of seasonal (photoperiod and past and present temperature), developmental (developmental phase and age), or stress response (overcrowding and nutrient stress). Despite the variety of competing inputs, these many and various mechanisms are integrated at the action of a small number of nodes in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) termed floral pathway integrators (Simpson and Dean, 2002). Analyses of the genes identified by flowering time mutants have shown many have roles as chromatin modifiers (Andrés and Coupland, 2012; Pajoro et al., 2014). Timing of flowering seems particularly sensitive to chromatin regulation, potentially due to the necessity for long-term storage of seasonal information.In this review, we focus on vernalization in Arabidopsis and summarize our understanding of how chromatin modifiers interact with other proteins and noncoding RNAs to integrate developmental and temperature cues into chromatin changes at the key integrating locus Flowering Locus C (FLC). Further, we explore how changes in these mechanisms underlie different life history strategies and vernalization responses in different accessions and species. A key observation we wish to convey is that the complexity of these systems at the molecular level belies simplicity in balancing forces that enable a fine degree of control and adaptive responses at the phenotypic level.     

Sumoylation, a post-translational regulatory process in plants

The reversible conjugation of the small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) peptide to protein substrates (sumoylation) is emerging as a major post-translational regulatory process in animals and other eukaryotes, including plants. Database annotation, and genetic and biochemical analyses indicate that components of the SUMO conjugation and deconjugation systems are conserved in plants such as Arabidopsis, rice, tomato, and Medicago. Specifically, Arabidopsis AtSUMO1/2 and SUMO E2 conjugation enzyme AtSCE1a are implicated in abscisic acid (ABA) responses and the ubiquitin-like SUMO protease 1 (ULP1) AtESD4 in flowering time regulation. The AtSIZ1 SUMO E3 ligase functions in phosphate starvation responses, cold tolerance, basal thermotolerance, salicylic acid (SA)-dependent pathogen defense, and flowering time regulation. Following is a brief overview of the current understanding of SUMO conjugation and deconjugation determinants, and biological processes that are regulated in plants.     

Circadian clock-regulated physiological outputs: Dynamic responses in nature

The plant circadian clock is involved in the regulation of numerous processes. It serves as a timekeeper to ensure that the onset of key developmental events coincides with the appropriate conditions. Although internal oscillating clock mechanisms likely evolved in response to the earth's predictable day and night cycles, organisms must integrate a range of external and internal cues to adjust development and physiology. Here we introduce three different clock outputs to illustrate the complexity of clock control. Clock-regulated diurnal growth is altered by environmental stimuli. The complexity of the photoperiodic flowering pathway highlights numerous nodes through which plants may integrate information to modulate the timing of flowering. Comparative analyses among ecotypes that differ in flowering response reveal additional environmental cues and molecular processes that have developed to influence flowering. We also explore the process of cold acclimation, where circadian inputs, light quality, and stress responses converge to improve freezing tolerance in anticipation of colder temperatures.     

The metabolic pathway of salicylic acid rather than of chlorogenic acid is involved in the stress-induced flowering of Pharbitis nil

We examined the involvement of chlorogenic acid (CGA) and salicylic acid (SA) in the stress-induced flowering of Pharbitis nil (synonym Ipomoea nil). The incorporation efficiency of exogenously applied CGA and the deactivation rate of incorporated CGA were determined in cotyledons by high-performance liquid chromatography. The assay plants could not incorporate a sufficient amount of CGA via roots. The perfusion technique by which the assay solution was forced into the plant from the cut end of the hypocotyl improved the efficiency of CGA incorporation. However, no flower-inducing activity was detected, indicating that CGA was not involved in flowering. It was concluded that the close correlation between CGA content and flowering response is merely coincidence or a parallelism. Flowering under long-day conditions induced by low-temperature stress was completely inhibited by aminooxyacetic acid (AOA), an inhibitor of phenylalanine ammonialyase. The flower-inhibiting effect of AOA was nullified by co-applied t-cinnamic acid and by benzoic acid. This indicates that the metabolic pathway from t-cinnamic acid to SA via benzoic acid is involved in the stress-induced flowering. The results indicate that the metabolic pathway of SA is involved in the stress-induced flowering of P. nil not the metabolic pathway of CGA.     

可变剪切在植物成花转换中的作用

精确调控成花转换,确保植物在适宜环境下开花,对于植物的成功繁殖和物种繁衍至关重要。开花由多种分子机制在转录、转录后和蛋白质水平进行调控。可变剪切(AS)是一种普遍的转录后水平调控过程,可从单个基因产生多个转录本,从而丰富转录组和蛋白质组的多样性。大量研究表明,可变剪切在成花转换过程中发挥重要作用。根据发育和环境条件, AS能够影响mRNA的稳定性和/或蛋白亚型的功能,从而调控开花相关基因的功能转录本和/或功能蛋白水平。揭示成花相关pre-mRNA的AS作用将进一步增进人们对开花相关基因功能以及整个成花转换调控网络的认识。该文归纳了涉及成花转换的AS研究进展,并针对各个调控途径进行总结,以期为进一步研究植物AS和成花转换调控机制提供参考。