Publikationen - Molekulare Signalverarbeitung

Trans -cleaving hammerheads with discontinuous or extended stem I and with tertiary stabilizing motifs (TSMs) have been tested previously against short RNA substrates in vitro at low Mg 2+ concentration. However, the potential of these ribozymes for targeting longer and structured RNAs in vitro and in vivo has not been examined. Here, we report the in vitro cleavage of short RNAs and of a 464-nt highly structured RNA from potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) by hammerheads with discontinuous and extended formats at submillimolar Mg 2+ . Under these conditions, hammerheads derived from eggplant latent viroid and peach latent mosaic viroid (PLMVd) with discontinuous and extended formats, respectively, where the most active. Furthermore, a PLMVd-derived hammerhead with natural TSMs showed activity in vivo against the same long substrate and interfered with systemic PSTVd infection, thus reinforcing the idea that this class of ribozymes has potential to control pathogenic RNA replicons.

Eggplant latent viroid (ELVd) can form stable hammerhead structures in its (+) and (−) strands. These ribozymes have the longest helices I reported in natural hammerheads, with that of the ELVd (+) hammerhead being particularly stable (5/7 bp are G-C). Moreover, the trinucleotide preceding the self-cleavage site of this hammerhead is AUA, which together with GUA also found in some natural hammerheads, deviate from the GUC present in most natural hammerheads including the ELVd (−) hammerhead. When the AUA trinucleotide preceding the self-cleavage site of the ELVd (+) hammerhead was substituted by GUA and GUC, as well as by AUC (essentially absent in natural hammerheads), the values of the self-cleavage rate constants at low magnesium of the purified hammerheads were: ELVd-(+)-AUC≈ELVd-(+)-GUC>ELVd-(+)-GUA> ELVd-(+)-AUA. However, the ELVd-(+)-AUC hammerhead was the catalytically less efficient during in vitro transcription, most likely because of the transient adoption of catalytically-inactive metastable structures. These results suggest that natural hammerheads have been evolutionary selected to function co-transcriptionally, and provide a model explaining the lack of trinucleotide AUC preceding the self-cleavage site of most natural hammerheads. Comparisons with other natural hammerheads showed that the ELVd-(+)-GUC and ELVd-(+)-AUC hammerheads are the catalytically most active in a post-transcriptional context with low magnesium.

In barley leaves 13-lipoxygenases (LOXs) are induced by salicylate and jasmonate. Here, we analyse by metabolic profiling the accumulation of oxylipins upon sorbitol treatment. Although 13-LOX-derived products are formed and specifically directed into the reductase branch of the LOX pathway, accumulation is much later than in the cases of salicylate and jasmonate treatment. In addition, under these conditions only the accumulation of jasmonates as additional products of the LOX pathway has been found.

Diadenosine 5′,5′”‐P1,P4‐tetraphosphate (Ap4A) cleaving enzymes are assumed to regulate intracellular levels of Ap4A, a compound known to affect cell proliferation and stress responses. From plants an Ap4A hydrolase was recently purified using tomato cells grown in suspension. It was partially sequenced and a peptide antibody was prepared (Feussner et al., 1996). Using this polyclonal monospecific antibody, an abundant nuclear location of Ap4A hydrolase in 4‐day‐old cells of atomato cell suspension culture is demonstrated here by means of immunocytochemical techniques using FITC (fluorescein‐5‐isothiocyanate) labeled secondary antibodies. The microscopic analysis of the occurrence of Ap4A hydrolase performed for different stages of the cell cycle visualized by parallel DAPI (4,6‐diamidino‐2‐phenylindole) staining revealed that the protein accumulates within nuclei of cells in the interphase, but is absent in the nucleus as well as cytoplasm during all stages of mitosis. This first intracellular localization of an Ap4A degrading enzyme within the nucleus and its pattern of appearance during the cell cycle is discussed in relation to the suggested role of Ap4A in triggering DNA synthesis and cell proliferation.