scholarly journals Plant ecological genomics at the limits of life in the Atacama Desert

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (46) ◽  
pp. e2101177118
Author(s):  
Gil Eshel ◽  
Viviana Araus ◽  
Soledad Undurraga ◽  
Daniela C. Soto ◽  
Carol Moraga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stress Responses ◽  
Atacama Desert ◽  
Nutrient Deficiencies ◽  
Ph Gradients ◽  
Plant Adaptation ◽  
Nitrogen Fixers ◽  
Ultraviolet Irradiance ◽  
Functional Relevance ◽  
Microbe Diversity ◽  
Plant Ecological

The Atacama Desert in Chile—hyperarid and with high–ultraviolet irradiance levels—is one of the harshest environments on Earth. Yet, dozens of species grow there, including Atacama-endemic plants. Herein, we establish the Talabre–Lejía transect (TLT) in the Atacama as an unparalleled natural laboratory to study plant adaptation to extreme environmental conditions. We characterized climate, soil, plant, and soil–microbe diversity at 22 sites (every 100 m of altitude) along the TLT over a 10-y period. We quantified drought, nutrient deficiencies, large diurnal temperature oscillations, and pH gradients that define three distinct vegetational belts along the altitudinal cline. We deep-sequenced transcriptomes of 32 dominant plant species spanning the major plant clades, and assessed soil microbes by metabarcoding sequencing. The top-expressed genes in the 32 Atacama species are enriched in stress responses, metabolism, and energy production. Moreover, their root-associated soils are enriched in growth-promoting bacteria, including nitrogen fixers. To identify genes associated with plant adaptation to harsh environments, we compared 32 Atacama species with the 32 closest sequenced species, comprising 70 taxa and 1,686,950 proteins. To perform phylogenomic reconstruction, we concatenated 15,972 ortholog groups into a supermatrix of 8,599,764 amino acids. Using two codon-based methods, we identified 265 candidate positively selected genes (PSGs) in the Atacama plants, 64% of which are located in Pfam domains, supporting their functional relevance. For 59/184 PSGs with an Arabidopsis ortholog, we uncovered functional evidence linking them to plant resilience. As some Atacama plants are closely related to staple crops, these candidate PSGs are a “genetic goldmine” to engineer crop resilience to face climate change.

scholarly journals Advances in the Regulation of Epidermal Cell Development by C2H2 Zinc Finger Proteins in Plants

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoliang Han ◽  
Yuxia Li ◽  
Ziqi Qiao ◽  
Chengfeng Wang ◽  
Yang Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cell Fate ◽  
Zinc Finger ◽  
Epidermal Cell ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Root Hairs ◽  
Zinc Finger Proteins ◽  
Cell Development ◽  
Salt Glands ◽  
Plant Adaptation ◽  
C2h2 Zinc Finger

Plant epidermal cells, such as trichomes, root hairs, salt glands, and stomata, play pivotal roles in the growth, development, and environmental adaptation of terrestrial plants. Cell fate determination, differentiation, and the formation of epidermal structures represent basic developmental processes in multicellular organisms. Increasing evidence indicates that C2H2 zinc finger proteins play important roles in regulating the development of epidermal structures in plants and plant adaptation to unfavorable environments. Here, we systematically summarize the molecular mechanism underlying the roles of C2H2 zinc finger proteins in controlling epidermal cell formation in plants, with an emphasis on trichomes, root hairs, and salt glands and their roles in plant adaptation to environmental stress. In addition, we discuss the possible roles of homologous C2H2 zinc finger proteins in trichome development in non-halophytes and salt gland development in halophytes based on bioinformatic analysis. This review provides a foundation for further study of epidermal cell development and abiotic stress responses in plants.

scholarly journals Small RNA Functions as a Trafficking Effector in Plant Immunity

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 2816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Zhu ◽  
Ting Liu ◽  
Ya-Nan Chang ◽  
Cheng-Guo Duan
Keyword(s):  
Small Rna ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Small Rnas ◽  
Plant Immunity ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Abiotic And Biotic Stress ◽  
Plant Adaptation ◽  
Cellular Processes ◽  
Challenging Environment ◽  
Rna Export

Small RNAs represent a class of small but powerful agents that regulate development and abiotic and biotic stress responses during plant adaptation to a constantly challenging environment. Previous findings have revealed the important roles of small RNAs in diverse cellular processes. The recent discovery of bidirectional trafficking of small RNAs between different kingdoms has raised many interesting questions. The subsequent demonstration of exosome-mediated small RNA export provided a possible tool for further investigating how plants use small RNAs as a weapon during the arms race between plant hosts and pathogens. This review will focus on discussing the roles of small RNAs in plant immunity in terms of three aspects: the biogenesis of extracellular small RNAs and the transportation and trafficking small RNA-mediated gene silencing in pathogens.

scholarly journals Rapid Genome Evolution and Adaptation of Thlaspi arvense Mediated by Recurrent RNA-Based and Tandem Gene Duplications

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanting Hu ◽  
Xiaopei Wu ◽  
Guihua Jin ◽  
Junchu Peng ◽  
Rong Leng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genome Evolution ◽  
Genome Assembly ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Extreme Environments ◽  
Gene Families ◽  
Tibet Plateau ◽  
Close Relative ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Plant Adaptation ◽  
Thlaspi Arvense

Retrotransposons are the most abundant group of transposable elements (TEs) in plants, providing an extraordinarily versatile source of genetic variation. Thlaspi arvense, a close relative of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana with worldwide distribution, thrives from sea level to above 4,000 m elevation in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), China. Its strong adaptability renders it an ideal model system for studying plant adaptation in extreme environments. However, how the retrotransposons affect the T. arvense genome evolution and adaptation is largely unknown. We report a high-quality chromosome-scale genome assembly of T. arvense with a scaffold N50 of 59.10 Mb. Long terminal repeat retrotransposons (LTR-RTs) account for 56.94% of the genome assembly, and the Gypsy superfamily is the most abundant TEs. The amplification of LTR-RTs in the last six million years primarily contributed to the genome size expansion in T. arvense. We identified 351 retrogenes and 303 genes flanked by LTRs, respectively. A comparative analysis showed that orthogroups containing those retrogenes and genes flanked by LTRs have a higher percentage of significantly expanded orthogroups (SEOs), and these SEOs possess more recent tandem duplicated genes. All present results indicate that RNA-based gene duplication (retroduplication) accelerated the subsequent tandem duplication of homologous genes resulting in family expansions, and these expanded gene families were implicated in plant growth, development, and stress responses, which were one of the pivotal factors for T. arvense’s adaptation to the harsh environment in the QTP regions. In conclusion, the high-quality assembly of the T. arvense genome provides insights into the retroduplication mediated mechanism of plant adaptation to extreme environments.

scholarly journals Genome-Wide Identification and Functional Characterization of CCHC-Type Zinc Finger Genes in Ustilaginoidea virens

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 947
Author(s):  
Xiaoyang Chen ◽  
Zhangxin Pei ◽  
Lin Peng ◽  
Qin Qin ◽  
Yuhang Duan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Zinc Finger ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Ribosome Biogenesis ◽  
Functional Characterization ◽  
Grain Filling ◽  
Nutrient Deficiencies ◽  
Ustilaginoidea Virens ◽  
Expression Of Genes ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Serious Disease

Rice false smut caused by Ustilaginoidea virens is a serious disease of rice (Oryza sativa), severely reducing plant mass and yields worldwide. We performed genome-wide analysis of the CCHC-type zinc-finger transcription factor family in this pathogen. We identified and functionally characterized seven UvCCHC genes in U. virens. The deletion of various UvCCHC genes affected the stress responses, vegetative growth, conidiation, and virulence of U. virens. ∆UvCCHC5 mutants infected rice spikelets normally but could not form smut balls. Sugar utilization experiments showed that the ∆UvCCHC5 mutants were defective in the utilization of glucose, sucrose, lactose, stachyose, and trehalose. Deletion of UvCCHC5 did not affect the expression of rice genes associated with grain filling, as revealed by RT-qPCR. We propose that the ∆UvCCHC5 mutants are impaired in transmembrane transport, and the resulting nutrient deficiencies prevent them from using nutrients from rice to form smut balls. RNA-seq data analysis indicated that UvCCHC4 affects the expression of genes involved in mitochondrial biogenesis, ribosomes, transporters, and ribosome biogenesis. These findings improve our understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying smut ball formation in rice by U. virens.

scholarly journals Identifying General Stress in Commercial Tomatoes Based on Machine Learning Applied to Plant Electrophysiology

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 5640
Author(s):  
Elena Najdenovska ◽  
Fabien Dutoit ◽  
Daniel Tran ◽  
Antoine Rochat ◽  
Basile Vu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stress Responses ◽  
Computation Time ◽  
Plant Health ◽  
Nutrient Deficiencies ◽  
General Stress ◽  
Abiotic Stressors ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Electrophysiological Signals ◽  
Plant Electrophysiology

Automated monitoring of plant health is becoming a crucial component for optimizing agricultural production. Recently, several studies have shown that plant electrophysiology could be used as a tool to determine plant status related to applied stressors. However, to the best of our knowledge, there have been no studies relating electrical plant response to general stress responses as a proxy for plant health. This study models general stress of plants exposed to either biotic or abiotic stressors, namely drought, nutrient deficiencies or infestation with spider mites, using electrophysiological signals acquired from 36 plants. Moreover, in the signal processing procedure, the proposed workflow reuses information from the previous steps, therefore considerably reducing computation time regarding recent related approaches in the literature. Careful choice of the principal parameters leads to a classification of the general stress in plants with more than 80% accuracy. The main descriptive statistics measured together with the Hjorth complexity provide the most discriminative information for such classification. The presented findings open new paths to explore for improved monitoring of plant health.

scholarly journals Nitrogen in plants: from nutrition to the modulation of abiotic stress adaptation

2022 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia Yuan Ye ◽  
Wen Hao Tian ◽  
Chong Wei Jin
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stress ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Nutrient Deficiencies ◽  
Molecular Processes ◽  
Plant Growth And Development ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Growth Development ◽  
Sessile Organisms

AbstractNitrogen is one of the most important nutrient for plant growth and development; it is strongly associated with a variety of abiotic stress responses. As sessile organisms, plants have evolved to develop efficient strategies to manage N to support growth when exposed to a diverse range of stressors. This review summarizes the recent progress in the field of plant nitrate (NO3-) and ammonium (NH4+) uptake, which are the two major forms of N that are absorbed by plants. We explore the intricate relationship between NO3-/NH4+ and abiotic stress responses in plants, focusing on stresses from nutrient deficiencies, unfavorable pH, ions, and drought. Although many molecular details remain unclear, research has revealed a number of core signaling regulators that are associated with N-mediated abiotic stress responses. An in-depth understanding and exploration of the molecular processes that underpin the interactions between N and abiotic stresses is useful in the design of effective strategies to improve crop growth, development, and productivity.

scholarly journals Water-deficit responsive microRNAs in the primary root growth zone of maize

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Candace M. Seeve ◽  
Ramanjulu Sunkar ◽  
Yun Zheng ◽  
Li Liu ◽  
Zhijie Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Root Growth ◽  
Water Deficit ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Primary Root ◽  
Growth Zone ◽  
Water Deficit Stress ◽  
Mild Stress ◽  
Nutrient Deficiencies ◽  
Mirna Regulation ◽  
Primary Root Growth

Abstract Background MicroRNA-mediated gene regulatory networks play a significant role in plant growth and development and environmental stress responses. Results We identified 79 microRNAs (miRNAs) and multiple miRNA variants (isomiRs) belonging to 26 miRNA families in the primary root growth zone of maize seedlings grown at one of three water potentials: well-watered (− 0.02 MPa), mild water deficit stress (− 0.3 MPa), and severe water deficit stress (− 1.6 MPa). The abundances of 3 miRNAs (mild stress) and 34 miRNAs representing 17 families (severe stress) were significantly different in water-deficit stressed relative to well-watered controls (FDR < 0.05 and validated by stem loop RT-qPCR). Degradome sequencing revealed 213 miRNA-regulated transcripts and trancriptome profiling revealed that the abundance of 77 (miRNA-regulated) were regulated by water-defecit stress. miR399e,i,j-3p was strongly regulated by water-defcit stress implicating the possibility of nutrient deficiency during stress. Conclusions We have identified a number of maize miRNAs that respond to specific water deficits applied to the primary root growth zone. We have also identified transcripts that are targets for miRNA regulation in the root growth zone under water-deficit stress. The miR399e,i,j-3p that is known to regulate phosphate uptake in response to nutrient deficiencies responds to water-deficit stress, however, at the seedling stage the seed provides adequate nutrients for root growth thus miR399e,i,j-3p may play a separate role in water-deficit responses. A water-deficit regulated maize transcript, similar to known miR399 target mimics, was identified and we hypothesized that it is another regulatory player, moderating the role of miR399e,i,j-3p, in primary root growth zone water deficit responses.

Emotions and health: The impact of emotions, emotions regulation, music, and acculturation on health

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 112-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Bongard ◽  
Volker Hodapp ◽  
Sonja Rohrmann
Keyword(s):  
Stress Responses ◽  
Physiological Stress ◽  
Anger Expression ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Cardiovascular Stress ◽  
Expression Behavior ◽  
Cardio Vascular ◽  
And Coping ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Our unit investigates the relationship of emotional processes (experience, expression, and coping), their physiological correlates and possible health outcomes. We study domain specific anger expression behavior and associated cardio-vascular loads and found e.g. that particularly an open anger expression at work is associated with greater blood pressure. Furthermore, we demonstrated that women may be predisposed for the development of certain mental disorders because of their higher disgust sensitivity. We also pointed out that the suppression of negative emotions leads to increased physiological stress responses which results in a higher risk for cardiovascular diseases. We could show that relaxation as well as music activity like singing in a choir causes increases in the local immune parameter immunoglobuline A. Finally, we are investigating connections between migrants’ strategy of acculturation and health and found e.g. elevated cardiovascular stress responses in migrants when they where highly adapted to the German culture.

Childbirth and Posttraumatic Stress Responses

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 259-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eelco Olde ◽  
Rolf J. Kleber ◽  
Onno van der Hart ◽  
Victor J.M. Pop
Keyword(s):  
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Posttraumatic Stress ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Rating Scales ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Event Scale ◽  
Self Rating ◽  
The Impact

Childbirth has been identified as a possible traumatic experience, leading to traumatic stress responses and even to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The current study investigated the psychometric properties of the Dutch version of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) in a group of women who recently gave birth (N = 435). In addition, a comparison was made between the original IES and the IES-R. The scale showed high internal consistency (α = 0.88). Using confirmatory factor analysis no support was found for a three-factor structure of an intrusion, an avoidance, and a hyperarousal factor. Goodness of fit was only reasonable, even after fitting one intrusion item on the hyperarousal scale. The IES-R correlated significantly with scores on depression and anxiety self-rating scales, as well as with scores on a self-rating scale of posttraumatic stress disorder. Although the IES-R can be used for studying posttraumatic stress reactions in women who recently gave birth, the original IES proved to be a better instrument compared to the IES-R. It is concluded that adding the hyperarousal scale to the IES-R did not make the scale stronger.

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