Publikationen - Natur- und Wirkstoffchemie

Drought is one of the major stress factors affecting growth and development of plants. In this context, drought-related losses of crop plant productivity impede sustainable agriculture all over the world. In general, plants responses to water deficit by multiple physiological and metabolic adaptations at the molecular, cellular and organism levels. To understand the underlying mechanisms of drought tolerance, adequate stress models and arrays of reliable stress markers are required. Therefore, in this review we comprehensively address currently available models of drought stress, based on culturing plants in soil, hydroponic or agar culture. These experimental setups give access to different aspects of plant response to drought, like decrease of tissue water potential, reduction of stomata conductance and photosynthesis efficiency, accumulation of low-molecular weight solutes (metabolic adjustment) and drought protective proteins. Till now, this pattern of markers was successfully extended to the methods of enzyme chemistry, molecular biology and omics techniques. Thus, conventional tests can be efficiently complemented by determination of phytohormone and reactive oxygen species (ROS) contents, activities of antioxidant enzymes, as well as comprehensive profiling of transcriptome, proteome and metabolome.

Drought is one of the major stress factors affecting the growth and development of plants. In this context, drought-related losses of crop plant productivity impede sustainable agriculture all over the world. In general, plants respond to water deficits by multiple physiological and metabolic adaptations at the molecular, cellular, and organism levels. To understand the underlying mechanisms of drought tolerance, adequate stress models and arrays of reliable stress markers are required. Therefore, in this review we comprehensively address currently available models of drought stress, based on culturing plants in soil, hydroponically, or in agar culture, and critically discuss advantages and limitations of each design. We also address the methodology of drought stress characterization and discuss it in the context of real experimental approaches. Further, we highlight the trends of methodological developments in drought stress research, i.e., complementing conventional tests with quantification of phytohormones and reactive oxygen species (ROS), measuring antioxidant enzyme activities, and comprehensively profiling transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome.

The magnitude and the direction of the gravitational field represent an important environmental factor affecting plant development. In this context, the absence or frequent alterations of the gravity field (i.e. microgravity conditions) might compromise extraterrestrial agriculture and hence space inhabitation by humans. To overcome the deleterious effects of microgravity, a complete understanding of the underlying changes on the macromolecular level is necessary. However, although microgravity-related changes in gene expression are well characterised on the transcriptome level, proteomic data are limited. Moreover, information about the microgravity-induced changes in the seedling proteome during seed germination and the first steps of seedling development is completely missing. One of the valuable tools to assess gravity-related issues is 3D clinorotation (i.e. rotation in two axes). Therefore, here we address the effects of microgravity, simulated by a two-axial clinostat, on the proteome of 24- and 48-h-old seedlings of oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.). The liquid chromatography-MS-based proteomic analysis and database search revealed 95 up- and 38 downregulated proteins in the tryptic digests obtained from the seedlings subjected to simulated microgravity, with 42 and 52 annotations detected as being unique for 24- and 48-h treatment times, respectively. The polypeptides involved in protein metabolism, transport and signalling were annotated as the functional groups most strongly affected by 3-D clinorotation.