The Polyadenylation of RNA in Plants

Stem sections from poplar that were stably transformed with a eucalypt cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase promoter-[beta]-glucuronidase construct were prepared by using either a technique routinely used in herbaceous species or a technique designed to take into account the particular anatomy of woody plants. Although both preparation techniques confirmed the pattern of expression previously observed (C. Feuillet, V. Lauvergeat, C. Deswarte, G. Pilate, A. Boudet and J. Grima-Pettenati [1995] Plant Mol Biol 27: 651-657), the latter technique also allowed the detection of other sites of promoter activity not revealed by the first technique. In situ hybridization confirmed the expression pattern obtained with the second sample preparation technique.     

New pUC-derived expression vectors for rapid construction of cDNA libraries

We have constructed a new series of the pUC-derived plasmids with an extended polylinker obtained from M13tg131 [Kieny et al., Gene 26 (1983) 91-99]. These vectors allowed us to design a simplified version of the method of Okayama and Berg [Mol. Cell. Biol. 2 (1982) 161-170] for establishing complete cDNA libraries. Improvements included easy recovery of the inserted cDNA due to the extended polylinkers; use of these vectors for gene expression in Escherichia coli, and amenability to supercoil sequencing with the universal primers of the M13 system [Chen and Seeburg, DNA 4 (1985) 165-170], which speeds up the identification of positive clones. Moreover, there is no need for an additional linker fragment, as was required by the Okayama and Berg [Mol. Cell. Biol. 2 (1982) 161-170] method. We have successfully used this system to obtain cDNA clones coding for the different chains of the large basement membrane proteins type IV collagen and laminin.     

Polyphenol oxidase in potato. A multigene family that exhibits differential expression patterns.

Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity in potato (Solanum tuberosum) plants was high in stolons, tubers, roots, and flowers but low in leaves and stems. PPO activity per tuber continued to increase throughout tuber development but was highest on a fresh weight basis in developing tubers. PPO activity was greatest at the tuber exterior, including the skin and cortex tissue 1 to 2 mm beneath the skin. Flowers had high PPO activity throughout development, particularly in the anthers and ovary. Five distinct cDNA clones encoding PPO were isolated from developing tuber RNA. POT32 was the major form expressed in tubers and was found in all parts of the tuber and at all stages of tuber development. It was also expressed in roots but not in photosynthetic tissues. POT33 was expressed in tubers but mainly in the tissue near the skin. POT72 was detected in roots and at low levels in developing tubers. NOR333 was identical with the P2 PPO clone previously isolated from potato leaves (M.D. Hunt, N.T. Eannetta, Y. Haifeng, S.M. Newman, J.C. Steffens [1993] Plant Mol Biol 21: 59-68) and was detected in young leaves and in tissue near the tuber skin but was highly expressed in flowers. The results indicate that PPO is present as a small multigene family in potato and that each gene has a specific temporal and spatial pattern of expression.     

RFLP analysis of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase ACC2 and ACC4 genes from Polish cultivars of tomato

An important trait of tomato is the rate of fruit ripening, strongly dependent on ethylene production. The ripening-related ethylene synthesis in tomato is controlled mainly by 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase LE-ACS2 and LE-ACS4 isoenzymes (Rottmann et al., 1991, J. Mol. Biol. 222: 937; Lincoln et al., 1993, J. Biol. Chem. 268: 19422; Barry et al., 2000, Plant Physiol. 123: 979). In spite of numerous reports on the LE-ACS2 and LE-ACS4 gene expression, only ones considered the genomic organisation each of these genes (Rottmann et al., 1991; Lincoln et al., 1993) reported one copy of each of these genes in tomato cv VF36. In this article we suggest that the genomic organisation of LE-ACS2 and LE-ACSS4 genes may depend on tomato cultivars and may differ from that described by the above authors. The results of Southern analyses of genomic DNAs from 17-day old seedlings (cultivars Jaga, Halicz, Betalux, New Yorker) imply that the genomic organisation of LE-ACS2 and LE-ACS4 genes in Polish cultivars differs from that reported for cv VF36.     

Quaternary structure of rice nonsymbiotic hemoglobin

Plant nonsymbiotic hemoglobins are hexacoordinate heme proteins found in all plants. Although expression is linked with hypoxic environmental conditions (Taylor, E. R., Nie, X. Z., Alexander, W. M., and Hill, R. D. (1994) Plant Mol. Biol. 24, 853-862), no discrete physiological function has yet been attributed to this family of proteins. The crystal structure of a nonsymbiotic hemoglobin from rice has recently been determined. The crystalline protein is homodimeric and hexacoordinate with two histidine side chains coordinating the heme iron atom. Despite the fact that the amino acids responsible for the subunit interface are relatively conserved among the nonsymbiotic hemoglobins, previous work suggests that this group of proteins might display variability in quaternary structure (Duff, S. M. G., Wittenberg, J. B., and Hill, R. D. (1997) J. Biol. Chem. 272, 16746-16752; Arredondo-Peter, R., Hargrove, M. S., Sarath, G., Moran, J. F., Lohrman, J., Olson, J. S., and Klucas, R. V. (1997) Plant Physiol. 115, 1259-1266). Analytical ultracentrifugation and size exclusion high pressure liquid chromatography were used to investigate the quaternary structure of rice nonsymbiotic hemoglobin at various states of ligation and oxidation. Additionally, site-directed mutagenesis was used to test the role of several interface amino acids in dimer formation and ligand binding. Results were analyzed in light of possible physiological functions and indicate that the plant nonsymbiotic hemoglobins are not oxygen transport proteins but more closely resemble known oxygen sensors.     

Autoproteolysis of herpes simplex virus type 1 protease releases an active catalytic domain found in intermediate capsid particles.

The UL26 gene of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) encodes a 635-amino-acid protease that cleaves itself and the HSV-1 assembly protein ICP35cd (F. Liu and B. Roizman, J. Virol. 65:5149-5156, 1991). We previously examined the HSV protease by using an Escherichia coli expression system (I. C. Deckman, M. Hagen, and P. J. McCann III, J. Virol. 66:7362-7367, 1992) and identified two autoproteolytic cleavage sites between residues 247 and 248 and residues 610 and 611 of UL26 (C. L. DiIanni, D. A. Drier, I. C. Deckman, P. J. McCann III, F. Liu, B. Roizman, R. J. Colonno, and M. G. Cordingley, J. Biol. Chem. 268:2048-2051, 1993). In this study, a series of C-terminal truncations of the UL26 open reading frame was tested for cleavage activity in E. coli. Our results delimit the catalytic domain of the protease to the N-terminal 247 amino acids of UL26 corresponding to No, the amino-terminal product of protease autoprocessing. Autoprocessing of the full-length protease was found to be unnecessary for catalysis, since elimination of either or both cleavage sites by site-directed mutagenesis fails to prevent cleavage of ICP35cd or an unaltered protease autoprocessing site. Catalytic activity of the 247-amino-acid protease domain was confirmed in vitro by using a glutathione-S-transferase fusion protein. The fusion protease was induced to high levels of expression, affinity purified, and used to cleave purified ICP35cd in vitro, indicating that no other proteins are required. By using a set of domain-specific antisera, all of the HSV-1 protease cleavage products predicted from studies in E. coli were identified in HSV-1-infected cells. At least two protease autoprocessing products, in addition to fully processed ICP35cd (ICP35ef), were associated with intermediate B capsids in the nucleus of infected cells, suggesting a key role for proteolytic maturation of the protease and ICP35cd in HSV-1 capsid assembly.     

Contribution of the Regulatory Gene lemA to Field Fitness of Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae

In Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae, lemA is required for brown spot lesion formation on snap bean and for production of syringomycin and extracellular proteases (E. M. Hrabak and D. K. Willis, J. Bacteriol. 174: 3011-3022, 1992; E. M. Hrabak and D. K. Willis, Mol. Plant-Microbe Interact. 6:368-375, 1993; D. K. Willis, E. M. Hrabak, J. J. Rich, T. M. Barta, S. E. Lindow, and N. J. Panopoulos, Mol. Plant-Microbe Interact. 3:149-156, 1990). The lemA mutant NPS3136 (lemA1::Tn5) was previously found to be indistinguishable from its pathogenic parent B728a in its ability to grow when infiltrated into bean leaves of plants maintained under controlled environmental conditions (Willis et al., Mol. Plant-Microbe Interact. 3:149-156, 1990). We compared population sizes of NPS3136 and B728aN (a Nal(supr) clone of wild-type B728a) in two field experiments to determine the effect of inactivation of lemA on the fitness of P. syringae pv. syringae. In one experiment, the bacterial strains were spray inoculated onto the foliage of 25-day-old bean plants. In the other, seeds were inoculated at the time of planting. In both experiments, the strains were inoculated individually and coinoculated in a 1:1 ratio. NPS3136 and B728aN achieved similar large population sizes on germinating seeds. However, in association with leaves, population sizes of NPS3136 were diminished relative to those of B728aN in both experiments. Thus, lemA contributed significantly to the fitness of P. syringae pv. syringae in association with bean leaves but not on germinating seeds under field conditions. When NPS3136 was coinoculated with B728aN, the mutant behaved as it did when inoculated alone. However, population sizes of B728aN in the coinoculation treatment were much lower than those when it was inoculated alone. Inactivation of the lemA gene appeared to have rendered the mutant suppressive to B728aN.     

Changes in motility, gene expression and actin dynamics: Cdk6-induced cytoskeletal changes associated with differentiation in mouse astrocytes

Cyclin dependent kinase (cdk) 4 and cdk6 have historically been understood to be D-cyclin kinases that phosphorylate pRb in the nucleus to regulate G1 phase of the cell cycle. In conflict with this understood redundancy are several studies that have demonstrated a novel role for cdk6 in differentiation. Cdk6 expression must be reduced to allow proper osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation, enforced cdk6 expression blocked differentiation of mouse embryo fibroblasts, and cdk6 expression in primary astrocytes favored the expression of progenitor cell markers (Ericson et al. [2003] Mol Cancer Res 1:654-664; Matushansky et al. [2003] Oncogene 22:4143-4149; Ogasawara et al. [2004a] J Bone Miner Res 19:1128-1136; Ogasawara et al. [2004b] Mol Cell Biol 24:6560-6568). Experiments shown here investigate novel cytoplasmic and nuclear functions of cdk6. These data demonstrate that cdk6 expression in mouse astrocytes results in changes in patterns of gene expression, changes in the actin cytoskeleton including loss of stress fibers, and enhanced motility. These changes in cdk6-infected cells are associated with the process of cellular differentiation.     

Isolation, characterization, cDNA cloning and gene expression of an avian transthyretin. Implications for the evolution of structure and function of transthyretin in vertebrates.

A chicken liver cDNA library was constructed in bacteriophage lambda gt10. A full-length transthyretin cDNA clone was identified by screening with rat transthyretin cDNA and was sequenced. A three-dimensional model of chicken transthyretin was obtained by computer-graphics-based prediction from the derived amino acid sequence for chicken transthyretin and from the structure of human transthyretin determined by X-ray diffraction analysis [Blake, C.C.F., Geisow, M.J., Oatley, S.J., Rérat, B. & Rérat, C. (1978) J. Mol. Biol. 121, 339-356]. The similarity of the amino acid sequences of chicken and human transthyretins was 75% overall and 100% for the central channel containing the thyroxine-binding site. Also, the organization of the transthyretin gene into exons and introns and the tissue specificity of expression of the transthyretin gene were similar in chicken and mammals, despite an evolutionary distance of about 3 x 10(8) years from their common ancestor, the Cotylosaurus. By far the highest levels of transthyretin mRNA were found in choroid plexus. The data suggest a fundamental role for the cerebral expression of transthyretin in all vertebrates. It has been proposed that this role is the transport of thyroxine from the bloodstream to the brain [Schreiber, G., Aldred, A.R., Jaworowski, A., Nilsson, C., Achen, M.G. & Segal, M.B. (1990) Am. J. Physiol. 258, R338-R345].