Publikationen - Molekulare Signalverarbeitung

Leaves of barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv. Salome ) treated with jasmonic acid (JA), its methyl ester (JM), or its amino acid conjugates exhibit up‐regulation of specific genes and down‐regulation of house‐keeping genes. This transcriptional regulation exhibits several specificities. (i) The (−)‐enantiomers are more active, and conjugates are mainly active if they carry an l ‐amino acid moiety. (ii) The various JA‐responsive genes respond differentially to enantiomeric and chiralic forms. (iii) Both JA and its amino acid conjugates exhibiting no or negligible interconversion induce/repress genes.

A protein preparation from the mycelium of the tropical pathogenic fungus Botryodiplodia theobromae revealed a novel peptidase activity. This enzyme was capable of cleaving conjugates of jasmonic acid with α-amino acids. The protein was enriched 108-fold by gel filtration, ion exchange and hydrophobic interaction chromatography. The enzyme was found to be a glycoprotein with a molecular mass of about 107 kDa. The amidohydrolase seems to be very specific with regard to (−)-jasmonic acid and α-amino acids with (S)-configuration.

A clone of an ubiquitin‐conjugating enzyme (UBC) was isolated from a λ‐ZAP‐cDNA library, generated from mRNA of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) cells grown in suspension for 3 days. The open reading frame called Le UBC1, encodes for a polypeptide with a predicted molecular mass of 21.37 kDa, which was confirmed by bacterial overexpression and SDS‐PAGE. Database searches with Le UBC1 showed highest sequence similarities to UBC1 of bovine and yeast. By Southern blot analysis Le UBC1 was identified as a member of a small E2 subfamily of tomato, presumably consisting of at least two members. As revealed by Northern blot analysis Le UBC1 is constitutively expressed in an exponentially growing tomato cell culture. In response to heat shock an increase in Le UBC1‐mRNA was detectable. A strong accumulation of the Le UBC1‐transcript was observed by exposure to heavy metal stress which was performed by treatment with cadmium chloride (CdCl2). The cellular uptake of cadmium was controlled via ICP‐MS measurements. The data suggest that like in yeast, in plants a certain subfamily of UBC is specifically involved in the proteolytic degradation of abnormal proteins as result of stress.