Arabidopsis Research Roundup: July 30th

Two broad topics dominant the studies featured in this weeks Arabidopsis Research Roundup. Environmental and hormonal factors that control different types of ‘dormancy’ are presented in studies from the labs of Caroline Dean (JIC) and Ian Graham (York). Elsewhere two Sainsbury lab (Norwich) led studies investigate different aspects of the interaction between plants and bacterial pathogens. Finally Colin Turnbull from Imperial College is involved in an interesting assessment of cytokinin concentrations across the root tip.

Duncan S, Holm S, Questa J, Irwin J, Grant A, Dean C (2015) Seasonal shift in timing of vernalization as an adaptation to extreme winter Elife. http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06620

Caroline Dean (JIC) again publishes in the open access journal eLife as her lab continues to investigate the precise detail of the vernalisation response. This response shows natural variation that is dependent on the geographic distribution of Arabidopsis ecotypes. Plants collected from northern latitudes showed maximum vernalisaton at 8oC, both at the level of flowering time and FLC chromatin silencing. The vernalisation response was measured both in controlled and field conditions and all Northern ecotypes were importantly shown to vernalise prior to snowfall, which would allow flowering immediately after thawing. These findings have important implications for models aimed at predicting the affect of climate change on flowering time.

Ibarra SE1, Tognacca RS1, Dave A2, Graham IA2, Sánchez RA1, Botto JF (2015) Molecular mechanisms underlying the entrance in secondary dormancy of Arabidopsis seeds Plant Cell Environ http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pce.12607

Ian Graham is the leader of the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP) at the University of York and contributes to this Argentinian-led study that looks into the molecular factors that underlie secondary dormancy in Arabidopsis seeds. They show that this process involves changes in the content and sensitivity to GA (but not ABA) that requires the activity of the RGL2 protein acting through ABI5. A wide geographical study then perhaps unsurprisingly showed that temperature is also an important variable influencing the induction of secondary dormancy

Lee D, Bourdais G, Yu G, Robatzek S, Coaker G (2015) Phosphorylation of the Plant Immune Regulator RPM1-INTERACTING PROTEIN4 Enhances Plant Plasma Membrane H+-ATPase Activity and Inhibits Flagellin-Triggered Immune Responses in Arabidopsis Plant Cell http://dx.doi.org/10.1105/tpc.114.132308

Silke Robatek (TSL) is the UK lead on this collaboration with UC-Davis that looks at phosphorylation of RPM1-INTERACTING PROTEIN4 (RIN4) in a range of Arabidopsis genotypes that are suspectible to infection. Flexibility of the RIN4 protein is affected by phosphorylation and this causes enhanced suspectibility coincident with increasing plasma membrane H+-ATPase activity. The expression of the AHA1 ATPase is high in guard cells and therefore linked to stomatal opening. As such bacterial infection works to phosphorylate RIN4 that in turn increases the chance of bacterial entry.

Pfeilmeier S, Saur IM, Rathjen JP, Zipfel C, Malone JG (2015) High levels of cyclic-di-GMP in plant-associated Pseudomonas correlate with evasion of plant immunity Mol Plant Pathology http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mpp.12297

GARNet Advisory Board Member Cyril Zipfel (TSL) and Jacob Malone (JIC) investigate the response to pathogen/microbe-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs/MAMPs) by the plant innate immune system. The resulting pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) fends off pathogen attack by recognition of bacterial flagellin by, amongst others, the FLAGELLIN SENSING2 (FLS2) protein. In this study the authors focus on the bacterial side of the response and show that cyclic-di-GMP is involved in the evasion of PTI, although this also reduces virulence, likely due to reduced flagellar motility. This results in a trade off for the bacteria in which it is not recognised as readily by plant yet isn’t as virulent.

Antoniadi I, Plačková L, Simonovik B, Doležal K, Turnbull C, Ljung K, Novák O (2015) Cell-Type-Specific Cytokinin Distribution within the Arabidopsis Primary Root Apex Plant Cell http://dx.doi.org/10.1105/tpc.15.00176

Colin Turnbull (Imperial College) is a contributor to this Swedish-Czech collaboration that measures cytokinin concentrations in root cell files isolated by FACS and analysed by MS. The authors show a gradient of cytokinin across the root tip with maximum concentrations in the lateral root cap, columnella and QC cells. As these are also areas of high auxin concentration, the authors suggest that this implies that interactions between the two hormone groups are cell type specific.



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