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Publikationen - Molekulare Signalverarbeitung

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Publikation

Bagchi, R.; Melnyk, C. W.; Christ, G.; Winkler, M.; Kirchsteiner, K.; Salehin, M.; Mergner, J.; Niemeyer, M.; Schwechheimer, C.; Calderón Villalobos, L. I. A.; Estelle, M.; The Arabidopsis ALF4 protein is a regulator of SCF E3 ligases EMBO J. 37, 255-268, (2018) DOI: 10.15252/embj.201797159

The cullin‐RING E3 ligases (CRLs) regulate diverse cellular processes in all eukaryotes. CRL activity is controlled by several proteins or protein complexes, including NEDD8, CAND1, and the CSN. Recently, a mammalian protein called Glomulin (GLMN) was shown to inhibit CRLs by binding to the RING BOX (RBX1) subunit and preventing binding to the ubiquitin‐conjugating enzyme. Here, we show that Arabidopsis ABERRANT LATERAL ROOT FORMATION4 (ALF4) is an ortholog of GLMN. The alf4 mutant exhibits a phenotype that suggests defects in plant hormone response. We show that ALF4 binds to RBX1 and inhibits the activity of SCFTIR1, an E3 ligase responsible for degradation of the Aux/IAA transcriptional repressors. In vivo, the alf4 mutation destabilizes the CUL1 subunit of the SCF. Reduced CUL1 levels are associated with increased levels of the Aux/IAA proteins as well as the DELLA repressors, substrate of SCFSLY1. We propose that the alf4 phenotype is partly due to increased levels of the Aux/IAA and DELLA proteins.
Publikation

Gasperini, D.; Acosta, I. F.; Farmer, E. E.; Cotyledon Wounding of Arabidopsis Seedlings Bio Protoc. 6, e1712, (2016) DOI: 10.21769/BioProtoc.1712

Damage to plant organs through both biotic and abiotic injury is very common in nature. Arabidopsis thaliana 5-day-old (5-do) seedlings represent an excellent system in which to study plant responses to mechanical wounding, both at the site of the damage and in distal unharmed tissues. Seedlings of wild type, transgenic or mutant lines subjected to single or repetitive cotyledon wounding can be used to quantify morphological alterations (e.g., root length, Gasperini et al., 2015), analyze the dynamics of reporter genes in vivo (Larrieu et al., 2015; Gasperini et al., 2015), follow transcriptional changes by quantitative RT-PCR (Acosta et al., 2013; Gasperini et al., 2015) or examine additional aspects of the wound response with a plethora of downstream procedures. Here we illustrate how to rapidly and reliably wound cotyledons of young seedlings, and show the behavior of two promoters driving the expression of β-glucuronidase (GUS) in entire seedlings and in the primary root meristem, following single or repetitive cotyledon wounding respectively. We describe two procedures that can be easily adapted to specific experimental needs.
Publikation

Gasperini, D.; Chételat, A.; Acosta, I. F.; Goossens, J.; Pauwels, L.; Goossens, A.; Dreos, R.; Alfonso, E.; Farmer, E. E.; Multilayered Organization of Jasmonate Signalling in the Regulation of Root Growth PLOS Genet. 11, e1005300, (2015) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005300

Physical damage can strongly affect plant growth, reducing the biomass of developing organs situated at a distance from wounds. These effects, previously studied in leaves, require the activation of jasmonate (JA) signalling. Using a novel assay involving repetitive cotyledon wounding in Arabidopsis seedlings, we uncovered a function of JA in suppressing cell division and elongation in roots. Regulatory JA signalling components were then manipulated to delineate their relative impacts on root growth. The new transcription factor mutant myc2-322B was isolated. In vitro transcription assays and whole-plant approaches revealed that myc2-322B is a dosage-dependent gain-of-function mutant that can amplify JA growth responses. Moreover, myc2-322B displayed extreme hypersensitivity to JA that totally suppressed root elongation. The mutation weakly reduced root growth in undamaged plants but, when the upstream negative regulator NINJA was genetically removed, myc2-322B powerfully repressed root growth through its effects on cell division and cell elongation. Furthermore, in a JA-deficient mutant background, ninja1 myc2-322B still repressed root elongation, indicating that it is possible to generate JA-responses in the absence of JA. We show that NINJA forms a broadly expressed regulatory layer that is required to inhibit JA signalling in the apex of roots grown under basal conditions. By contrast, MYC2, MYC3 and MYC4 displayed cell layer-specific localisations and MYC3 and MYC4 were expressed in mutually exclusive regions. In nature, growing roots are likely subjected to constant mechanical stress during soil penetration that could lead to JA production and subsequent detrimental effects on growth. Our data reveal how distinct negative regulatory layers, including both NINJA-dependent and -independent mechanisms, restrain JA responses to allow normal root growth. Mechanistic insights from this work underline the importance of mapping JA signalling components to specific cell types in order to understand and potentially engineer the growth reduction that follows physical damage.
Publikation

Gasperini, D.; Chauvin, A.; Acosta, I. F.; Kurenda, A.; Stolz, S.; Chételat, A.; Wolfender, J.-L.; Farmer, E. E.; Axial and Radial Oxylipin Transport Plant Physiol. 169, 2244-2254, (2015) DOI: 10.1104/pp.15.01104

Jasmonates are oxygenated lipids (oxylipins) that control defense gene expression in response to cell damage in plants. How mobile are these potent mediators within tissues? Exploiting a series of 13-lipoxygenase (13-lox) mutants in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) that displays impaired jasmonic acid (JA) synthesis in specific cell types and using JA-inducible reporters, we mapped the extent of the transport of endogenous jasmonates across the plant vegetative growth phase. In seedlings, we found that jasmonate (or JA precursors) could translocate axially from wounded shoots to unwounded roots in a LOX2-dependent manner. Grafting experiments with the wild type and JA-deficient mutants confirmed shoot-to-root oxylipin transport. Next, we used rosettes to investigate radial cell-to-cell transport of jasmonates. After finding that the LOX6 protein localized to xylem contact cells was not wound inducible, we used the lox234 triple mutant to genetically isolate LOX6 as the only JA precursor-producing LOX in the plant. When a leaf of this mutant was wounded, the JA reporter gene was expressed in distal leaves. Leaf sectioning showed that JA reporter expression extended from contact cells throughout the vascular bundle and into extravascular cells, revealing a radial movement of jasmonates. Our results add a crucial element to a growing picture of how the distal wound response is regulated in rosettes, showing that both axial (shoot-to-root) and radial (cell-to-cell) transport of oxylipins plays a major role in the wound response. The strategies developed herein provide unique tools with which to identify intercellular jasmonate transport routes.
Publikation

Farmer, E. E.; Gasperini, D.; Acosta, I. F.; The squeeze cell hypothesis for the activation of jasmonate synthesis in response to wounding New Phytol. 204, 282-288, (2014) DOI: 10.1111/nph.12897

Jasmonates are lipid mediators that control defence gene expression in response to wounding and other environmental stresses. These small molecules can accumulate at distances up to several cm from sites of damage and this is likely to involve cell‐to‐cell jasmonate transport. Also, and independently of jasmonate synthesis, transport and perception, different long‐distance wound signals that stimulate distal jasmonate synthesis are propagated at apparent speeds of several cm min–1 to tissues distal to wounds in a mechanism that involves clade 3 GLUTAMATE RECEPTOR‐LIKE (GLR) genes. A search for jasmonate synthesis enzymes that might decode these signals revealed LOX6, a lipoxygenase that is necessary for much of the rapid accumulation of jasmonic acid at sites distal to wounds. Intriguingly, the LOX6 promoter is expressed in a distinct niche of cells that are adjacent to mature xylem vessels, a location that would make these contact cells sensitive to the release of xylem water column tension upon wounding. We propose a model in which rapid axial changes in xylem hydrostatic pressure caused by wounding travel through the vasculature and lead to slower, radially dispersed pressure changes that act in a clade 3 GLR‐dependent mechanism to promote distal jasmonate synthesis.
Publikation

Acosta, I. F.; Gasperini, D.; Chételat, A.; Stolz, S.; Santuari, L.; Farmer, E. E.; Role of NINJA in root jasmonate signaling Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110, 15473-15478, (2013) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1307910110

Wound responses in plants have to be coordinated between organs so that locally reduced growth in a wounded tissue is balanced by appropriate growth elsewhere in the body. We used a JASMONATE ZIM DOMAIN 10 (JAZ10) reporter to screen for mutants affected in the organ-specific activation of jasmonate (JA) signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings. Wounding one cotyledon activated the reporter in both aerial and root tissues, and this was either disrupted or restricted to certain organs in mutant alleles of core components of the JA pathway including COI1, OPR3, and JAR1. In contrast, three other mutants showed constitutive activation of the reporter in the roots and hypocotyls of unwounded seedlings. All three lines harbored mutations in Novel Interactor of JAZ (NINJA), which encodes part of a repressor complex that negatively regulates JA signaling. These ninja mutants displayed shorter roots mimicking JA-mediated growth inhibition, and this was due to reduced cell elongation. Remarkably, this phenotype and the constitutive JAZ10 expression were still observed in backgrounds lacking the ability to synthesize JA or the key transcriptional activator MYC2. Therefore, JA-like responses can be recapitulated in specific tissues without changing a plant’s ability to make or perceive JA, and MYC2 either has no role or is not the only derepressed transcription factor in ninja mutants. Our results show that the role of NINJA in the root is to repress JA signaling and allow normal cell elongation. Furthermore, the regulation of the JA pathway differs between roots and aerial tissues at all levels, from JA biosynthesis to transcriptional activation.
Publikation

Schwager, K. M.; Calderon-Villalobos, L. I. A.; Dohmann, E. M.; Willige, B. C.; Knierer, S.; Nill, C.; Schwechheimer, C.; Characterization of the VIER F-BOX PROTEINE Genes from Arabidopsis Reveals Their Importance for Plant Growth and Development Plant Cell 19, 1163-1178, (2007) DOI: 10.1105/tpc.105.040675

E3 ubiquitin ligases (E3s) target proteins for degradation by the 26S proteasome. In SKP1/CDC53/F-box protein–type E3s, substrate specificity is conferred by the interchangeable F-box protein subunit. The vast majority of the 694 F-box proteins encoded by the Arabidopsis thaliana genome remain to be understood. We characterize the VIER F-BOX PROTEINE (VFB; German for FOUR F-BOX PROTEINS) genes from Arabidopsis that belong to subfamily C of the Arabidopsis F-box protein superfamily. This subfamily also includes the F-box proteins TRANSPORT INHIBITOR RESPONSE1 (TIR1)/AUXIN SIGNALING F-BOX (AFB) proteins and EIN3 BINDING F-BOX proteins, which regulate auxin and ethylene responses, respectively. We show that loss of VFB function causes delayed plant growth and reduced lateral root formation. We find that the expression of a number of auxin-responsive genes and the activity of DR5:β-glucuronidase, a reporter for auxin reponse, are reduced in the vfb mutants. This finding correlates with an increase in the abundance of an AUXIN/INDOLE-3-ACETIC ACID repressor. However, we also find that auxin responses are not affected in the vfb mutants and that a representative VFB family member, VFB2, cannot functionally complement the tir1-1 mutant. We therefore exclude the possibility that VFBs are functional orthologs of TIR1/AFB proteins.
Publikation

Calderon-Villalobos, L. I. A.; Nill, C.; Marrocco, K.; Kretsch, T.; Schwechheimer, C.; The evolutionarily conserved Arabidopsis thaliana F-box protein AtFBP7 is required for efficient translation during temperature stress Gene 392, 106-116, (2007) DOI: 10.1016/j.gene.2006.11.016

In eukaryotes, E3 ubiquitin ligases (E3s) mediate the ubiquitylation of proteins that are destined for degradation by the ubiquitin–proteasome system. In SKP1/CDC53/F-box protein (SCF)-type E3 complexes, the interchangeable F-box protein confers specificity to the E3 ligase through direct physical interactions with the degradation substrate. The vast majority of the approximately 700 F-box proteins from the plant model organism Arabidopsis thaliana remain to be characterized. Here, we investigate the previously uncharacterized and evolutionarily conserved Arabidopsis F-box protein 7 (AtFBP7), which is encoded by a unique gene in Arabidopsis (At1g21760). Several apparent fbp7 loss-of-function alleles do not have an obvious phenotype. AtFBP7 is ubiquitously expressed and its expression is induced after cold and heat stress. When following up on a reported co-purification of the eukaryotic elongation factor-2 (eEF-2) with YLR097c, the apparent budding yeast orthologue of AtFBP7, we discovered a general defect in protein biosynthesis after cold and heat stress in fbp7 mutants. Thus, our findings suggest that AtFBP7 is required for protein synthesis during temperature stress.
Publikation

Calderon-Villalobos, L. I. A.; Kuhnle, C.; Li, H.; Rosso, M.; Weisshaar, B.; Schwechheimer, C.; LucTrap Vectors Are Tools to Generate Luciferase Fusions for the Quantification of Transcript and Protein Abundance in Vivo Plant Physiol. 141, 3-14, (2006) DOI: 10.1104/pp.106.078097

Proper plant growth and development strongly rely on the plant's ability to respond dynamically to signals and cues from the intra- and extracellular environment. Whereas many of these responses require specific changes at the level of gene expression, in recent years it has become increasingly clear that many plant responses are at least in part also controlled at the level of protein turnover. It is a challenge for signal transduction research to understand how distinct incoming signals are integrated to generate specific changes at the transcript or protein level. The activity of luciferase (LUC) reporters can be detected in nondestructive qualitative and quantitative assays in vivo. Therefore,z LUC reporters are particularly well suited for the detection of changes at the transcript and protein level. To the best of our knowledge, the number of plant transformation vectors for LUC fusions is very limited. In this article, we describe the LucTrap plant transformation vectors that allow generation of targeted and random transcriptional and translational fusions with the modified firefly LUC reporter LUC+. We demonstrate that LucTrap-based fusions can be used to monitor rapid changes in gene expression and protein abundance in vivo.
Publikation

Calderon-Villalobos, L. I.; Kuhnle, C.; Dohmann, E. M.; Li, H.; Bevan, M.; Schwechheimer, C.; The Evolutionarily Conserved TOUGH Protein Is Required for Proper Development of Arabidopsis thaliana Plant Cell 17, 2473-2485, (2005) DOI: 10.1105/tpc.105.031302

In this study, we characterize the evolutionarily conserved TOUGH (TGH) protein as a novel regulator required for Arabidopsis thaliana development. We initially identified TGH as a yeast two-hybrid system interactor of the transcription initiation factor TATA-box binding protein 2. TGH has apparent orthologs in all eukaryotic model organisms with the exception of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. TGH contains domains with strong similarity to G-patch and SWAP domains, protein domains that are characteristic of RNA binding and processing proteins. Furthermore, TGH colocalizes with the splicing regulator SRp34 to subnuclear particles. We therefore propose that TGH plays a role in RNA binding or processing. Arabidopsis tgh mutants display developmental defects, including reduced plant height, polycotyly, and reduced vascularization. We found TGH expression to be increased in the amp1-1 mutant, which is similar to tgh mutants with respect to polycotyly and defects in vascular development. Interestingly, we observed a strong genetic interaction between TGH and AMP1 in that tgh-1 amp1-1 double mutants are extremely dwarfed and severely affected in plant development in general and vascular development in particular when compared with the single mutants.
  • Die Leibniz-Gemeinschaft
  • Digitalisierung in der Landwirtschaft
  • Martin-Luther Universität Halle
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