Gravity-Induced Gene Expression in Plants.
Abstract
Plants sense changes in their orientation towards the vector of gravity and respond with directional growth. Several metabolites in the signal transduction cascade have been identified. However, very little is known about the interaction between these sensing and signal transduction events and even less is known about their role in the differential growth response. Gravity induced changes in transcript abundance have been identified in Arabidopsis whole seedlings and root apices (Moseyko et al. 2002; Kimbrough et al. 2004). Gravity induced transcript abundance changes can be observed within less than 1 min after stimulation (Salinas-Mondragon et al. 2005). Gene expression however requires not only transcription but also translation of the mRNA. Translation can only occur when mRNA is associated with ribosomes, even though not all mRNA associated with ribosomes is actively translated. To approximate translational capacity we quantified whole genome transcript abundances in corn stem pulvini during the first hour after gravity stimulation in total and poly-ribosomal fractions. As in Arabidopsis root apices, transcript abundances of several clusters of genes responded to gravity stimulation. The vast majority of these transcripts were also found to associate with polyribosomes in the same temporal and quantitative pattern. These genes are transcriptionally regulated by gravity stimulation, but do not exhibit translational regulation. However, a small group of genes showed increased transcriptional regulation after gravity stimulation, but no association with polysomes. These transcripts likely are translationally repressed. The mechanism of translational repression for these transcripts is unknown. Based on the hypothesis that the genes essential for gravitropic responses should be expressed in most or all species, we compared the temporal gravity induced expression pattern of all orthologs identified between maize and Arabidopsis. A small group of genes showed high sequence identity as well as a conserved pattern of transcript abundance changes after gravity stimulation between corn pulvinus tissue and Arabidopsis root apices. The functions of these genes in gravitropic responses are currently being analyzed and should give us important information about evolutionary conserved elements in plant gravity signal transduction. (This research was funded by NASA). Kimbrough, J. M., R. Salinas-Mondragon, et al. (2004). "The Fast and Transient Transcriptional Network of Gravity and Mechanical Stimulation in the Arabidopsis Root Apex." Plant Physiol. 136(1): 2790-2805. Moseyko, N., T. Zhu, et al. (2002). "Transcription profiling of the early gravitropic response in Arabidopsis using high-density oligonucleotide probe microarrays." Plant Physiol 130(2): 720-8. Salinas-Mondragon, R., A. Brogan, et al. (2005). "Gravity and light: integrating transcriptional regulation in roots." Gravit Space Biol Bull 18(2): 121-2.
- Publication:
-
37th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008cosp...37.2798S