Publikationen - Molekulare Signalverarbeitung

Thiohydroximates comprise a diverse class of compounds important in both biological and industrial chemistry. Their syntheses are generally limited to simple alkyl and aryl compounds with few stereocenters and a narrow range of functional groups. We hypothesized that sequential action of two recombinant enzymes, a sulfatase from Helix pomatia and a β-O-glucosidase from Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus, on glucosinolates would allow synthesis of thiohydroximates from a structurally broad array of abundant precursors. We report successful synthesis of thiohydroximates of varied chemical classes, including from homochiral compounds of demonstrated biological activity. The chemoenzymatic synthetic route reported here should allow access to many, if not all, of the thiohydroximate core structures of the ~200 known naturally occurring glucosinolates. The enrichment of this group for compounds with possible pharmacological potential is discussed.

In the present paper we study the possible biological relevance of endogenous jasmonic acid (JA) and exogenous salicylic acid (SA) in a plant-microbial system maize-virus. The virus disease "Mal de Río Cuarto" is caused by the maize rough dwarf virus - Río Cuarto. The characteristic symptoms are the appearance of galls or "enations" in leaves, shortening of the stem internodes, poor radical system and general stunting. Changes in JA and protein pattern in maize control and infected plants of a virus-tolerant cultivar were investigated. Healthy and infected-leaf discs were collected for JA measurement at different post-infection times (20, 40, 60 and 68 days). JA was also measured in roots on day 60 after infection. For SDS-PAGE protein analysis, leaf discs were also harvested on day 60 after infection. Infected leaves showed higher levels of JA than healthy leaves, and the rise in endogenous JA coincided with the enation formation. The soluble protein amount did not show differences between infected and healthy leaves; moreover, no difference in the expression of soluble protein was revealed by SDS-PAGE. Our results show that the octadecanoid pathway was stimulated in leaves and roots of the tolerant maize cultivar when infected by this virus. This finding, together with fewer plants with the disease symptoms, suggest that higher foliar and roots JA content may be related to disease tolerance. SA exogenous treatment caused the reversion of the dwarfism symptom.