Anne Osterrieder speaks to GARNet about a recent paper published in JXB entitled ‘Stacks off tracks: a role for the golgin AtCASP in plant endoplasmic reticulum-Golgi apparatus tethering‘. Please listen here, on the GARNet YouTube channel or subscribe to GARNet on iTunes.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
This weeks Arabidopsis Research Roundup includes four studies from around the UK. Firstly is a systems-level study of the drought response that includes Alessandra Devoto from RHUL as a co-author. Secondly Anne Osbourn’s group at the JIC investigates sesterterpenoid biosynthesis across plant species. Thirdly Paul Jarvis from Oxford University adds to this groups portfolio of research on the mechanisms that control thylakoid import. Finally Patrick Gallois (University of Manchester) provides further insight into the regulation of programmed cell death.
Kim JM, To TK et al (2017) Acetate-mediated novel survival strategy against drought in plants Nature Plants http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2017.97
Alessandra Devoto (Royal Holloway) is a co-author of this study led by Jong-Myong Kim, Mototaki Seki (RIKEN, Yokohama) and Taiko Kim Ko (University of Toyko) that investigates the system-wide alterations that plants make in response to drought stress. They demonstrate that the histone deacetylase HDA6 is the primary regulator of an epigenetic switch that leads to a metabolic flux conversion from glycolysis into acetate synthesis. This in turn stimulates the jasmonate signaling pathway that causes increased drought tolerance. Importantly the authors show that this critical survival response is evolutionarily conserved through monocots and dicots.
Huang AC, Kautsar SA, Hong YJ, Medema MH, Bond AD, Tantillo DJ, Osbourn A (2017) Unearthing a sesterterpene biosynthetic repertoire in the Brassicaceae through genome mining reveals convergent evolution. PNAS http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1705567114
Open Access
Anne Osbourn (JIC) leads this study in which her group works with collaborators from Cambridge, Wageningen and UC Davis to perform a cross-species genome-wide analysis of sesterterpenoid biosynthesis. They use a novel search algorithm to identify paired enzymatic components that comprise sesterterpene synthases (STS). These enzymes were transiently overexpressed in tobacco leaves, resulting in the formation of fungal-like sesterterpenes, suggestive of convergent evolution of plant and fungal STS. This study illuminates possible future strategies for the beneficial use of sesterterpenes through metabolic and protein engineering
Bédard J, Trösch R, Wu F, Ling Q, Flores-Pérez Ú, Töpel M, Nawaz F, Jarvis P (2017) New Suppressors of the Chloroplast Protein Import Mutant tic40 Reveal a Genetic Link between Protein Import and Thylakoid Biogenesis. Plant Cell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1105/tpc.16.00962 Open Access
Paul Jarvis (Oxford University) leads this global collaboration that focuses on the chloroplast protein import protein Tic40. A suppressor screen identified two novel regulators of Tic40, ALB4 and STIC2 that they postulate are involved in the thylakoid targeting of a subset of proteins and that their influence becomes more important in the absence of Tic40.
Cai YM, Yu J, Ge Y, Mironov A, Gallois P (2017) Two proteases with caspase-3-like activity, cathepsin B and proteasome, antagonistically control ER-stress-induced programmed cell death in Arabidopsis. New Phytol.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph.14676 Open Access
Patrick Gallois is the corresponding author on this study that originates at the University of Manchester. They attempt to establish a role for cathepsin B and proteasome subunit PBA1 in the control of programmed cell death (PCD) and whether their functions interest with those of caspase-3. They reveal a complex system of regulation where aspects of PCD are differentially impacted by each of these proteins. They propose the role of cathepsin B might occur late in PCD following tonoplast rupture.
The Arabidopsis Research Roundup returns this week with selection of publications from institutions across the UK. Firstly George Bassel (Birmingham) leads a study that investigates the integration of inductive signals in the embryonic root. Secondly a group from the Oxford Brookes plant science group look into the literal linkages between the golgi apparatus and ER. Thirdly John Christie (Glasgow) and co-workers define a new variant of the phototropin receptor. Next Caroline Dean and Martin Howard (John Innes Centre) collaborate on work that defines the relationship between FLC, COOLAIR and cell size. The fifth paper is led by members of SLCU and investigates the regulatory influence of the Evening Complex of the circadian clock. The penultimate paper features work from Alison Smith’s group at the JIC that looks at dynamics of starch accumulation and degradation. Lastly is research from NIAB that defines the pathogeniticity of novel UK isolates of the fungal pathogen Verticillium longisporum.
Topham AT, Taylor RE, Yan D, Nambara E, Johnston IG, Bassel GW (2017) Temperature variability is integrated by a spatially embedded decision-making center to break dormancy in Arabidopsis seeds. PNAS
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704745114
Open Access
George Bassel (University of Birmingham) leads this study that identifies a decision making centre in the embryonic root that is defined by the intimate interaction between the hormones abscisic acid (ABA) and gibberellin (GA). The activity of this ‘decision centre’ is linked to both hormone transport and changes in temperature, the overall output of which is the decision to promotes seed germination or to delay until more favourable environmental conditions.
George discusses this paper on the GARNet YouTube channel.
Osterrieder A, Sparkes IA, Botchway SW, Ward A, Ketelaar T, de Ruijter N, Hawes C (2017) Stacks off tracks: a role for the golgin AtCASP in plant endoplasmic reticulum-Golgi apparatus tethering. J Exp Bot. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erx167
Open Access
Anne Osterrieder and Chris Hawes (Oxford Brookes University) continue their work that looks at the cellular dynamics of the golgi apparatus with this study that identifies the AtCASP protein as a important component that tethers the golgi to the ER. They use live-cell imaging to visualise golgi formation in cells that have different levels of AtCASP, allowing the authors to confirm that ER-golgi tethering is disrupted without the activity of this protein.
Petersen J, Inoue SI, Kelly SM, Sullivan S, Kinoshita T, Christie JM (2017) Functional Characterization of a Constitutively Active Kinase Variant of Arabidopsis Phototropin 1
J Biol Chem. http://dx.doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M117.799643
Open Access
John Christie (University of Glasgow) collaborates with Japanese colleagues to identify a novel variant of the phototropin receptor. Study of this variant allows a greater understanding regarding the mode of action of this protein under different light conditions, as controlled by phosphorylation.
Ietswaart R, Rosa S, Wu Z, Dean C, Howard M (2017) Cell-Size-Dependent Transcription of FLC and Its Antisense Long Non-coding RNA COOLAIR Explain Cell-to-Cell Expression Variation. Cell Syst. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2017.05.010
Open Access
Martin Howard and Caroline Dean (John Innes Centre) again collaborate on research that analyses the mode of regulation of FLC. They dissect RNA dynamics of FLC expression by single molecule in situ RNA fluorescence, showing that this is dependent on the presence of the antisense COOLAIR regulatory DNA. In the absence of COOLAIR they show FLC expression has a linear relationship with cell size but in the presence of the antisense transcript, FLC expression decreases with cell size. Overall they demonstrate FLC expression is tightly dependent on the presence of the antisense COOLAIR transcript.
Ezer D, Jung JH, Lan H, Biswas S, Gregoire L, Box MS, Charoensawan V,, Cortijo S, Lai X,, Stöckle D, Zubieta C, Jaeger KE, Wigge PA (2017) The evening complex coordinates environmental and endogenous signals in Arabidopsis. Nat Plants.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2017.87
Free to view with this URL.
Phil Wigge and Katja Jaeger (SLCU) lead this study that investigates how the evening complex of the circadian clock coordinates the expression of numerous important growth regulators. This genome wide regulation is determined by temperature and concides with the binding of phytochrome B, which provides a cellularly mechanism of this level of environmental control.
Fernandez O, Ishihara H, George GM, Mengin V, Flis A, Sumner D, Arrivault S, Feil R, Lunn JE, Zeeman SC, Smith AM, Stitt M (2017) Foliar starch turnover occurs in long days and in falling light at the end of the day. Plant Physiol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1104/pp.17.00601
Open Access
On this paper Alison Smith (John Innes Centre) is a co-corresponding author together with Mark Stitt from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam. They continue their work to investigate the dynamics of starch metabolism in Arabidopsis leaves. Broadly they show the rate of starch accumulation corresponds to the photosynthetic rate whilst degradation is linked to correct functioning of the circadian clock. They investigate this process in more detail by determining how the rate of starch degradation alters dependent on the time after dawn.
Depotter J, Rodriguez-Moreno L, Thomma BP, Wood T (2017) The emerging British Verticillium longisporum population consists of aggressive Brassica pathogens. Phytopathology http://dx.doi.org/10.1094/PHYTO-05-17-0184-R
Tom Wood (NIAB) is the corresponding author of this study that characterises four new UK isolates of the fungal pathogen Verticillium longisporum. The pathogenticity of V.longisporum was tested on Arabidopsis alongside three other Brassica crops. They demonstrate that the UK isolates were unusually aggressive yet this was not consistent across all Brassica cultivars with different fungal lineages showing different effects on oil seed rape, cabbage or cauliflower.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Today is a sad one at GARNet HQ as we are losing Ruth Bastow to pastures new (a position with ELIXIR at the Earlham Institute).
Ruth has been involved with GARNet for well over a decade, first as full time coordinator and more recently as the part-time support for Charis Cook and myself.
Over those years Ruth has established GARNet as the respected voice for UK academic plant sciences. She is rightly extremely well regarded by the few who have served on the advisory board, the many who attended the (now) biennial GARNet meeting or the thousands who have used the resources on the GARNet website.
During this time Ruth’s vision has grown broader as she has played significant roles in the establishment of both the UK Plant Science Federation and the Global Plant Council. Without her vision none of these organisations would have survived so it is important that those of us still involved respect her legacy by focusing on maintaining the strength of these organisations.
One of Ruth’s finest contributions to the UK Plant Science community was in the organisation of the International Conference for Arabidopsis Research (ICAR) in Edinburgh in 2009. Hopefully the community can again bring this excellent meeting back to the UK in the coming years…
On a personal level it has been a pleasure to be Ruth’s friend and colleague since we met as starting PhD students at the University of Warwick in 1997(!).
Best of luck to Ruth in her new role. Fortunately for us and the entire global plant science community she will remain as an advisor for both GARNet, the GPC and the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC).
Last week the excellent International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR) took place in St Louis. This global meeting moves between North America, Europe and Asia on a rolling three year cycle. This years attendance was less than in recent years but for that reason it provided a great opportunity for attendees to get to grips with the excellent science in the presentations and the poster sessions without being overwhelmed by the amount of information.
The full abstract book can be downloaded here.
The meeting included an excellent amount of interaction on social media, which included plenty of dedicated tweeters! Bethany Huot has done a great job of putting the activity from the twitterverse into these daily Storify articles. Please take a look at them.
Day 1: So it begins
Day 2: ROAR on!
Day 3: The Weed Stampede.
Day 4: Rocking and Rolling.
Day 5: Finding our Quiescent Centre.
During the after-conference come-down and return to ‘normal’ life it can be difficult to keep track of what you heard and why it was important. Therefore we have put together a file that lists the speaker affiliation and the research that they discussed during their talks. Sorry this is limited to the talks that GARNet attended…
Down the review here (excel file): ICAR17_Review
The ICAR2018 meeting will be in Turku, Finland. See you there!
This weeks Arabidopsis Research Roundup includes three studies that are led from Norwich Research Park and another from the University of Nottingham. In the latter case Rupert Fray leads an investigation into the scarcely researched process of N6-adenosine methylation of RNA. The next two papers involve members of the Sainsbury lab in Norwich and investigate either the RPS4-RRS1 or FERONIA-LLG1 defence signaling pathways. Finally is a study that originates from the John Innes Centre links the defence response with biotic predation and calcium signaling.
Růžička K,, Zhang M, Campilho A,, Bodi Z, Kashif M, Saleh M, Eeckhout D,, El-Showk S, Li H,, Zhong S,, Jaeger G,, Mongan NP, Hejátko J, Helariutta Y,, Fray RG (2017) Identification of factors required for m6 A mRNA methylation in Arabidopsis reveals a role for the conserved E3 ubiquitin ligase HAKAI. New Phytol. http://dx.doi.org/
Open Access
Rupert Fray (University of Nottingham) is the corresponding author on this global collaboration that investigates the poorly understood yet essential phenomenon of mRNA N6-adenosine methylation (m6A). They used a combination of experimental techniques to identify a range of proteins that are necessary for this process. These proteins include the E3 ubiquitin ligase HAKAI that, when its expression is reduced, causes a range of phenotypes, including aberrant root vascular formation. The targets of the HAKAI E3 ligase are still to be determined but the authors suspect that this type of interaction will have relevance across eukaryotic species.
Huh SU, Cevik V, Ding P, Duxbury Z, Ma Y, Tomlinson L, Sarris PF, Jones JDG (2017) Protein-protein interactions in the RPS4/RRS1 immune receptor complex. PLoS Pathog.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1006376 Open Access
Jonathan Jones (The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich) leads this UK-funded study that includes collaborators from Bath and Exeter and looks into the function of the RPS4-RRS1 immune signaling complex. During the course of the paper they define the sub-cellular binding relationships between plant proteins RPS4, RRS1, EDS1 along with the pathogen effector AvrRps4. Furthermore they show that these protein interactions differently interact with PAD4 or SAG101. The authors demonstrate that this immune complex is highly dynamic during effector recognition and that altered proportions of each member disrupts the defence response.
Shen Q, Bourdais G, Pan H, Robatzek S, Tang D (2017) Arabidopsis glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored protein LLG1 associates with and modulates FLS2 to regulate innate immunity. PNAS http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1614468114 Open Access
Silke Robatzek (The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich) is a co-author on this Chinese-led study that investigates the role of the FERONIA signaling complex in the response to pathogen PAMPs. They show that LORELEI-LIKE GPI-ANCHORED PROTEIN 1 (LLG1) is a FERONIA co-receptor and that plants deficient in llg1 are more susceptible to various pathogens even though these plants do not show general growth defects. Overall the authors show that as a coreceptor of FERONIA, LLG1 plays a central role in many PAMP-dependent signaling pathways and is a candidate for future research in this area.
Vincent TR, Avramova M, Canham J, Higgins P, Bilkey N, Mugford ST, Pitino M, Toyota M, Gilroy S, Miller TJ, Hogenhout S, Sanders D (2017) Interplay of Plasma Membrane and Vacuolar Ion Channels, Together with BAK1, Elicits Rapid Cytosolic Calcium Elevations in Arabidopsis during Aphid Feeding. Plant Cell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00136 Open Access
Dale Sanders and GARNet committee member Saskia Hogenhout are corresponding authors on this study that includes researchers from the JIC and the University of Wisconsin. This research focused on the role of calcium as a signal during the response to biotic stress. They combined a fluorescent calcium biosensor (GCaMP3) during aphid predation experiments. They detected elevated calcium levels that coincided with aphid probing of leaf epidermal and mesophyll cell layers. They used the power of Arabidopsis genetics to determine that a number of known signaling molecules were involved in this process, allowing them to link biotic predation, the defence response and cellular calcium movement within a single signaling network.
Fascination of Plants Day: Botany Live
In 2012 the European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO) started global ‘Fascination of Plants Day’, an event that aimed to raise the profile of plant science and plant scientists around the world. Since two initial consecutive years this has now switched to a biannual event that has been fully embraced by people who work in on all aspects of plant science. Details of this can be found at http://www.plantday.org/. In the UK the events were coordinated by Dr Dario Breitel at the John Innes Centre and featured events at around 30 venues around the country.
One of these events was entitled ‘Botany Live’ and was led by Anne Osterrieder who is a lecturer in Biology and Science Communication at Oxford Brookes University as well as being the editor of the Annals of Botany blog (https://aobblog.com/). The aim of this event was to use the accessible online streaming resource Periscope to bring plant science into peoples’ homes and workplaces. The organisers requested that people live-stream a ‘short peek’ into their lives as plant scientists.
Over the weekend of FoPD (May 18th-21st) 32 events signed up to provide a Botany Live video. The majority of these were from the US and UK but also featured videos from Lebanon and Argentina! These videos are being uploaded to the Botany Live website (https://botany.live/events/) so you can go back and check out the action!
Botany Live kicked off on the evening on May 17th (UK time) with Marcela Karey Tello-Ruiz who is the coordinator of the Gramene project in New York. She live- streamed a ‘Plant Superpowers’ session in which she interacted with a group of primary school students to share the joy of amazing plants! https://www.pscp.tv/w/1yoJMBLXagDxQ
Official FoPD day, May 18th, also saw the majority of Botany Live events. These were kicked off by Alison Bentley providing an introduction to the NIAB Innovation Farm facility prior to the Wheat Transformation Facility Wrap up meeting (see also page 38 in this edition of GARNish). This video also featured Keith Edwards, Ben Sibbett and Sinead Drea discussing their wheat research projects (https://www.pscp.tv/w/1nAKEBqpYolGL).
Our event dovetailed nicely with a video from Craig Sturrock and colleagues at the University of Nottingham, who gave a tour of the Hounsfield CT scanning facility.
Throughout the (UK) afternoon there were a number of short videos from Kew Gardens that introduced some of the interesting plants that they have on site! A real video highlight was a very well choreographed livestream organized by Dr Jonathan Mitchley (aka Dr M) from the University of Reading in which he interacted with a group of school children, who gave their ‘plant highlights’.
The livestream action then crossed the pond, featuring a Q+A from the Brilliant Botany blogger Claire, a tour of the ABRC laboratory facilities at Ohio State University, as well as the greenhouse facilities at the Boyce Thompson Institute in Cornell. Later in the day, the livestream switched to focus on Argentinian Women Plant Scientists!
On Saturday May 20th researchers from the University of Glasgow featured in a really exciting set of videos from their FoPD celebration at Glasgow Botanic Gardens.
Truly it was a mixed bag of events and was an excellent first attempt at using this type of media to promote plant science. Hopefully Botany Live will be repeated again with more people taking up the challenge of putting together an interesting video for the global community……and tackling the connectivity issues relies on WiFi or a good 3G signal!
Botany Live was kindly supported by the SEB, the Annals of Botany Company, Plantae, The Quiet Branches and Oxford Brookes University.
The Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC) is responsible for supporting global Arabidopsis research. This is acheived through two mechanisms:
Firstly MASC members organise the annual International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR). This meeting often welcomes up to and over 1000 delegates to a location that switches between Asia, Europe and The Americas on a three-year cycle.
This years ICAR meeting in the St Louis, USA whilst the 2018 ICAR takes place in Turku, Finland.
Secondly MASC publishes an annual report (previous report can be found here) that includes updates from the MASC subcommittees (Bioinformatics, Epigenetics and Epigenomics, ORFeomics, Metabolomics, Natural Variation, Phenomics, Proteomics, Systems and Synthetic Biology), from Project Resources (such as Araport, TAIR, uNASC etc) and updates from the twenty-eight individual MASC country representatives.
In 2017 the GARNet coordinator took on the role of the MASC coordinator and has been responsible for collating the MASC Annual Report.
The PDF of the MASC Annual Report can be downloaded here.
We would encourage taking a look at this, not least to discover information about the remarkable set of collaborative tools that are available to the global research community.
More information about MASC can be found at Arabidopsisresearch.org
URL
Not logged in