Botanical Studies最新文献

Background: Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) serves as important grain crop widely cultivated in the world, which is often suffered by drought stress in natural conditions. As one of the most important post translation modifications, protein phosphorylation widely participates in plant abiotic stress regulation. In this study, we performed the first comparative analysis of phosphorylated protein characterization in flag leaves and developing grains of elite Chinese bread wheat cultivar Zhongmai 175 under water deficit by combining with proteomic approach and Pro-Q Diamond gel staining.

Results: Field experiment showed that water deficit caused significant reduction of plant height, tiller number, ear length and grain yield. 2-DE and Pro-Q Diamond gel staining analysis showed that 58 proteins were phosphorylated among 112 differentially accumulated proteins in response to water deficit, including 20 in the flag leaves and 38 in the developing grains. The phosphorylated proteins from flag leaves mainly involved in photosynthesis, carbohydrate and energy metabolism, while those from developing grains were closely related with detoxification and defense, protein, carbohydrate and energy metabolism. Particularly, water deficit resulted in significant downregulation of phosphorylated modification level in the flag leaves, which could affect photosynthesis and grain yield. However, some important phosphorylated proteins involved in stress defense, energy metabolism and starch biosynthesis were upregulated under water deficit, which could benefit drought tolerance, accelerate grain filling and shorten grain developing time.

Conclusions: The modification level of those identified proteins from flag leaves and grains had great changes when wheat was suffered from water deficit, indicating that phosphoproteins played a key role in response to drought stress. Our results provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms how phosphoproteins respond to drought stress and thus reduce production.

Background: Most genera of Fagaceae are thought to have originated in the temperate regions except for the genus Lithocarpus, the stone oaks. Lithocarpus is distributed in subtropical and tropical Asia, and its ancestral population is hypothesized to be distributed in tropical regions in Borneo and Indochina. Borneo and the nearby islands (the Greater Sunda Islands) were connected to the Malay Peninsula and Indochina prior to the Pliocene epoch and formed the former Sundaland continent. The Southeast Asian Lithocarpus, is thought to have dispersed between continental Asia and the present Sundaland. The drastic climate changes during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs which caused periodic sea-level changes is often used to explain the cause of its diversity. The aim of this study was to establish phylogenetic relationships by analyzing nuclear (nrDNA) and chloroplast (cpDNA) DNA in order to describe and analyze the origin, causes of diversification and historical biogeography of Lithocarpus.

Results: Phylogeny reconstructed through the multiple-species coalescent method with nrDNA and cpDNA revealed that the continental-Asian taxa were clustered at the basal lineages. The derived lineages of tropical Lithocarpus, with the inference of a subtropical ancestral state, imply a southward migration in the Early Miocene period with subsequent in situ diversification in the Greater Sunda Islands. The gradual decrease in temperature since the Middle Miocene period is proposed as a cause of the increase in the net diversification rate.

Conclusions: The historical ancestral origin of Lithocarpus has been suggested to be mainland Asia. Southward migration in the Early Miocene period with subsequent in situ diversification could explain the current diversity of stone oaks in Southeast Asia. This study also considered the multiple origins of stone oaks currently indigenous to the subtropical islands offshore and near mainland China. Our results provide phylogenetic evidence for a subtropical origin of Asian stone oaks and reveal the process of diversification and how it fits into the timeline of major geologic and climatic events rather than local, episodic, rate-shifting events.

Background: Chloroplast is indispensable for plant response to environmental stresses, growth and development, whose function is regulated by different plant hormones. The chloroplast proteome is encoded by chloroplast genome and nuclear genome, which play essential roles in plant photosynthesis, metabolism and other biological processes. Ethylene response factors (ERFs) are key transcription factors in activating the ethylene signaling pathway and plant response to abiotic stress. But we know little about how ethylene regulates plastid function under drought stress condition. In this study we utilized tobacco overexpressing tomato ethylene responsive factor 1 (TERF1), an ERF transcription factor isolated from tomato, to investigate its effects on the plastid proteome under drought stress condition by method of iTRAQ technology.

Results: Results show that TERF1 represses the genes encoding the photosynthetic apparatus at both transcriptional and translational level, but the genes involved in carbon fixation are significantly induced by TERF1. TERF1 regulates multiple retrograde signaling pathways, providing a new mechanism for regulating nuclear gene expression. TERF1 also regulates plant utilization of phosphorus (Pi) and nitrogen (N). We find that several metabolic and signaling pathways related with Pi are significantly repressed and gene expression analysis shows that TERF1 significantly represses the Pi transport from root to shoot. However, the N metabolism is upregulated by TERF1 as shown by the activation of different amino acids biosynthesis pathways due to the induction of glutamine synthetase and stabilization of nitrate reductase although the root-to-shoot N transport is also reduced. TERF1 also regulates other core metabolic pathways and secondary metabolic pathways that are important for plant growth, development and response to environmental stresses. Gene set linkage analysis was applied for the upregulated proteins by TERF1, showing some new potential for regulating plant response to drought stress by TERF1.

Conclusions: Our research reveals effects of ethylene signaling on plastid proteome related with two key biological processes, including photosynthesis and nutrition utilization. We also provide a new mechanism to regulate nuclear gene expression by ERF1 transcription factor through retrograde signals in chloroplast. These results can enrich our knowledge about ERF1 transcription factor and function of ethylene signaling pathway.

Background: There are estimated 180-220 species of Tuber described in the world, but the diversity of the genus in Taiwan is poorly known, with only two species recorded, i.e., Tuber formosanum and T. furfuraceum. During our survey of hypogenous fungi in Taiwan, a whitish truffle belongs to Puberulum clade was collected from roots of Keteleeria fortunei var. cyclolepis in central Taiwan and appeared to differ from the two recorded species.

Results: The whitish truffle is herein described as a new species Tuber elevatireticulatum, which is distinguished from closely resembled Asian whitish truffles species like Tuber thailandicum, T. panzhihuanense, T. latisporum and T. sinopuberulum by the association with Keteleeria host, small light brown ascocarps with a dark brown gleba, dark brownish and elliptical ascospores ornamented with a prominently raised alveolate reticulum. Molecular phylogenetic analyses of both ITS and LSU loci clearly supports T. elevatireticulatum as a new species without any significant incongruence.

Conclusions: The whitish truffle is herein described as a new species T. elevatireticulatum based on the evidence from morphology and DNA sequences. T. elevatireticulatum is the first scientific record of whitish truffle in Taiwan.

Background: Bilateral symmetry flower (zygomorphy) is the ancestral state for Gesneriaceae species. Yet independent reversions to actinomorphy have been parallelly evolved in several lineages. Conandron ramondioides is a natural radially symmetrical species survived in dense shade mountainous habitats where specialist pollinators are scarce. Whether the mutations in floral symmetry genes such as CYC, RAD and DIV genes, or their expression pattern shifts contribute to the reversion to actinomorphy in C. ramondioides thus facilitating shifts to generalist pollinators remain to be investigated. To address this, we isolated putative orthologues of these genes and relate their expressions to developmental stages of flower actinomorphy.

Results: Tissue specific RT-PCR found no dorsal identity genes CrCYCs and CrRADs expression in petal and stamen whorls, while the ventral identity gene CrDIV was expressed in all petals. Thus, ventralized actinomorphy is evolved in C. ramondioides. However, CrCYCs still persists their expression in sepal whorl. This is congruent with previous findings that CYC expression in sepals is an ancestral state common to both actinomorphic and zygomorphic core Eudicot species.

Conclusions: The loss of dorsal identity genes CrCYCs and CrRADs expression in petal and stamen whorl without mutating these genes specifies that a novel regulation change, possibly on cis-elements of these genes, has evolved to switch zygomorphy to actinomorphy.

Background: Seed size has been extensively studied in crop plants, as it determines crop yield. However, the mechanism of seed development remains elusive. In this study, we explored the mechanism of seed development in rice (Oryza sativa L.), and identified proteins affecting seed size.

Results: Proteomic analysis showed that glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase, chitinase 14 (CHT14), and phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) accumulated to high levels in the seeds of the natural japonica rice mutant Oochikara, which carries a loss-of-function mutation in the grain width 2 (GW2) gene; GW2 encodes a RING-type E3 ubiquitin ligase. In vitro pull-down and ubiquitination assays showed that CHT14 and PGK directly interacted with GW2 but were not ubiquitinated by GW2. Immunoblot analysis revealed that protein disulfide isomerase-like 1-1 accumulated to high levels in young developing seeds of the gw2 mutant compared with the wild type. Histochemical β-glucuronidase staining showed strong expression of GW2 in leaf and root tissues but weak expression in leaf sheaths and internodes. In addition, transformation of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene under the control of the GW2 promoter in rice revealed GFP expression in the aleurone layer of seeds.

Conclusions: Collectively, these results suggest that GW2 regulates seed size through direct interactions with proteins involved in carbohydrate metabolism by modulating their activity or stability and controlling disulfide bond formation in various proteins during seed development. Additionally, GW2 participates in vegetative as well as reproductive growth, and protects the seed from pathogen attack.