紫花苜蓿MsCIPK8基因的克隆与表达分析

CIPK是植物中一类丝氨酸/苏氨酸蛋白激酶,在植物响应逆境胁迫中发挥着重要的作用。本研究根据盐碱胁迫下紫花苜蓿(Medicago sativa L.)转录组数据设计引物,通过RT-PCR克隆获得紫花苜蓿MsCIPK8基因,该基因CDS全长1341bp,编码446个氨基酸,编码蛋白相对分子质量50.73 kD,等电点6.72,具有CIPKS家族蛋白所特有的N端激酶域和C端NAF/FISL结构域。生物信息学分析结果显示,MsCIPK8为可溶性蛋白,二级结构多为无规矩卷曲;系统进化分析表明,紫花苜蓿MsCIPK8与蒺藜苜蓿(Medicago truncatula Gaertn.)MtCIPK8亲缘关系最近。两个蛋白序列比对发现存在4个差异位点,其中3个在保守结构域内。MsCIPK8在低温、干旱、盐和盐碱胁迫下表达量均受到诱导上调表达。低温胁迫下,MsCIPK8在根和叶中的表达量分别在12 h和3 h达到峰值;盐胁迫下,MsCIPK8在根中的表达量12 h达到峰值;盐碱胁迫下,根和叶中MsCIPK8的表达量在12 h后持续高表达;干旱胁迫下,MsCIPK8在根和叶中的表达量在12 h均达到峰值。上述结果表明MsCIPK8参与紫花苜蓿对干旱、低温、盐和盐碱等非生物胁迫的应答。     

Multi-scale phenotyping of leaf expansion in response to environmental changes: the whole is more than the sum of parts

The leaf is a multi-scale dynamic unit that is determined by mechanisms at different organizational scales (cell, tissue, whole leaf and whole plant) and affected by both internal (genotype) and external (environmental) determinisms. The recent development of phenotyping platforms and imaging techniques provides new insights into the temporal and spatial patterns of leaf growth as affected by those determinisms. Conclusions about the overriding mechanisms often depend on the considered organizational scale and of time resolution which varies from minutes to several weeks. Analyses of leaf growth responses to environmental conditions have revealed robust emerging properties at whole plant or whole leaf scales. They have highlighted that the control of individual leaf expansion is more complex than merely the sum of cellular processes, and the control at the whole plant level is more complex than the sum of individual leaf expansions. However, in many cases, the integrated leaf-growth variable can be simplified to a limited set of underlying variables to be measured for comparative analyses of leaf growth or modelling purposes.     

沙冬青CBL1蛋白纯化及性质研究

CBL是近年来发现的一类钙信号转导蛋白,CBL-CIPK组成的信号通路在植物应答生物和非生物刺激中发挥重要作用。其中CBL1和相应的CIPK在低钾,渗透压,干旱,机械损伤,及冻伤等环境胁迫中发挥重要作用。通过对沙冬青CBL1表面带电氨基酸定点突变,表面赖氨酸甲基化后电荷消除证明了沙冬青CBL1(AmCBL1)在钙离子存在下的非特异性聚集是由于分子间的电荷相互作用引起,三体蛋白很可能是沙冬青CBL1蛋白发挥功能的单位。通过甲基化可以得到聚合状态均一的蛋白,为CBL1晶体生长奠定了基础。     

Biomechanical design and long-term stability of trees: Morphological and wood traits involved in the balance between weight increase and the gravitropic reaction

Studies on tree biomechanical design usually focus on stem stiffness, resistance to breakage or uprooting, and elastic stability. Here we consider another biomechanical constraint related to the interaction between growth and gravity. Because stems are slender structures and are never perfectly symmetric, the increase in tree mass always causes bending movements. Given the current mechanical design of trees, integration of these movements over time would ultimately lead to a weeping habit unless some gravitropic correction occurs. This correction is achieved by asymmetric internal forces induced during the maturation of new wood.The long-term stability of a growing stem therefore depends on how the gravitropic correction that is generated by diameter growth balances the disturbance due to increasing self weight. General mechanical formulations based on beam theory are proposed to model these phenomena. The rates of disturbance and correction associated with a growth increment are deduced and expressed as a function of elementary traits of stem morphology, cross-section anatomy and wood properties. Evaluation of these traits using previously published data shows that the balance between the correction and the disturbance strongly depends on the efficiency of the gravitropic correction, which depends on the asymmetry of wood maturation strain, eccentric growth, and gradients in wood stiffness. By combining disturbance and correction rates, the gravitropic performance indicates the dynamics of stem bending during growth. It depends on stem biomechanical traits and dimensions. By analyzing dimensional effects, we show that the necessity for gravitropic correction might constrain stem allometric growth in the long-term. This constraint is compared to the requirement for elastic stability, showing that gravitropic performance limits the increase in height of tilted stem and branches. The performance of this function may thus limit the slenderness and lean of stems, and therefore the ability of the tree to capture light in a heterogeneous environment.     

The COBRA gene family in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Populus</Emphasis> and gene expression in vegetative organs and in response to hormones and environmental stresses

COBRA proteins have been shown to be involved in both cell wall expansion and/or cellulose deposition. In this paper, we analyzed all 18 COBRA genes (PtCOBRA) from the completely sequenced Populus trichocarpa genome. The 14-member PtCOBRA subfamily I proteins have high similarities to the Arabidopsis (At) COB subfamily, and members with full length sequences were predicted to possess significant potentials for a GPI-anchor site. The 4-member PtCOBRA subfamily II proteins are 45% longer than subfamily I proteins and lack ω-attachment sites at the C terminus, and are more similar to AtCOBL7 subfamily. The expression of the Populus COBRA family genes were regulated in a tissue-specific manner, and were shown to also respond differentially to inductions of hormones and environmental stimuli which affect plant cell expansion. The high levels of expressions, particularly in shoot tip and young root organs, suggests that at least some Populus COBRA genes are likely involved in regulating cell expansion.     

Convergence and divergence in gene expression profiles induced by leaf senescence and 27 senescence-promoting hormonal, pathological and environmental stress treatments

In addition to age and developmental progress, leaf senescence and senescence-associated genes (SAGs) can be induced by other factors such as plant hormones, pathogen infection and environmental stresses. The relationship is not clear, however, between these induced senescence processes and developmental leaf senescence, and to what extent these senescence-promoting signals mimic age and developmental senescence in terms of gene expression profiles. By analysing microarray expression data from 27 different treatments (that are known to promote senescence) and comparing them with that from developmental leaf senescence, we were able to show that at early stages of treatments, different hormones and stresses showed limited similarity in the induction of gene expression to that of developmental leaf senescence. Once the senescence process is initiated, as evidenced by visible yellowing, generally after a prolonged period of treatments, a great proportion of SAGs of developmental leaf senescence are shared by gene expression profiles in response to different treatments. This indicates that although different signals that lead to initiation of senescence may do so through distinct signal transduction pathways, senescence processes induced either developmentally or by different senescence-promoting treatments may share common execution events.     

Response of Different Antibiotic Resistant Group of Streptococcus pyogenes to Environmental Stresses

Streptococcus species is considered as an important pathogen for human and animals. The antibiotic resistance mechanism in this species is continuously increased. On the other side, the tolerance of environmental stresses play an effective role in the severity of many streptococcal causative disease. In this study we assayed survey on the causative agents of pharyngitis and tonsillitis patients. The predominant causative strain was Streptococcus pyogenes with 93 % isolating ratio frequency. The other pathogenic species were S. agalactia 5.3 % and S. pneumonia 1.7 %. According to the antibiotic resistant test the S. pyogenes isolates were classified into six different groups. A selected strain from each antibiotic resistant group was tested for tolerance of a restrictive environmental factors. The variations of the environmental niches of isolates were in consistence with their antibiotic resistant variation.     

Finite element analysis of the mitral apparatus: annulus shape effect and chordal force distribution

This study presents a three-dimensional finite element model of the mitral apparatus using a hyperelastic transversely isotropic material model for the leaflets. The objectives of this study are to illustrate the effects of the annulus shape on the chordal force distribution and on the mitral valve response during systole, to investigate the role of the anterior secondary (strut) chordae and to study the influence of thickness of the leaflets on the leaflets stresses. Hence, analyses are conducted with a moving and fixed saddle shaped annulus and with and without anterior secondary chordae. We found that the tension in the secondary chordae represents 31% of the load carried by the papillary muscles. When removing the anterior secondary chordae, the tension in the primary anterior chordae is almost doubled, the displacement of the anterior leaflet toward the left atrium is also increased. The moving annulus configuration with an increasing annulus saddle height does not give significant changes in the chordal force distribution and in the leaflet stress compared to the fixed annulus. The results also show that the maximum principle stresses in the anterior leaflet are carried by the collagen fibers. The stresses calculated in the leaflets are very sensitive to the thickness employed.