scholarly journals Cyclophilins: Less Studied Proteins with Critical Roles in Pathogenesis

2018 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khushwant Singh ◽  
Mark Winter ◽  
Miloslav Zouhar ◽  
Pavel Ryšánek

Cyclophilins (EC 5.2.1.8) belong to a subgroup of proteins known as immunophilins, which also include FK506-binding proteins and parvulins. Members of the immunophilins have two main characteristic properties: (i) peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase activity and (ii) the ability to bind immunosuppressant molecules of fungal origin. Cyclophilins are some of the most conserved proteins present in eukaryotes and prokaryotes, and they have been implicated in diverse cellular processes and responses to multiple biotic and abiotic stresses. Cyclophilins have been exploited in humans and plants extensively, but they have only recently received attention in regard to phytopathogens. In Phellinus sulphurascens and species of the genus Leptosphaeria and Phytophthora, high expression of cyclophilins was found to be related to infection. Moreover, recent studies of cyclophilins in certain phytopathogens, such as Magnaporthe oryzae, Botrytis cinerea, Cryphonectria parasitica, and Puccinia triticina, demonstrated their roles as a pathogenicity factors. In addition to pathogenicity, cyclophilins have high affinity for the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporin A, which is a potent antifungal agent. Although cyclophilins are highly conserved in phytopathogens, because they have been less studied, their role remains largely unknown. In this review, we provide detailed information on the cyclophilins in several phytopathogens, including fungi and oomycetes, as well as their role in suppressing plant immunity.

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (21) ◽  
pp. 5321 ◽  
Author(s):  
ul Haq ◽  
Khan ◽  
Ali ◽  
Khattak ◽  
Gai ◽  
...  

Due to the present scenario of climate change, plants have to evolve strategies to survive and perform under a plethora of biotic and abiotic stresses, which restrict plant productivity. Maintenance of plant protein functional conformation and preventing non-native proteins from aggregation, which leads to metabolic disruption, are of prime importance. Plant heat shock proteins (HSPs), as chaperones, play a pivotal role in conferring biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. Moreover, HSP also enhances membrane stability and detoxifies the reactive oxygen species (ROS) by positively regulating the antioxidant enzymes system. Additionally, it uses ROS as a signal to molecules to induce HSP production. HSP also enhances plant immunity by the accumulation and stability of pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins under various biotic stresses. Thus, to unravel the entire plant defense system, the role of HSPs are discussed with a special focus on plant response to biotic and abiotic stresses, which will be helpful in the development of stress tolerance in plant crops.


2002 ◽  
Vol 357 (1422) ◽  
pp. 791-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Hussey ◽  
Ellen G. Allwood ◽  
Andrei P. Smertenko

The plant actin cytoskeleton is a highly dynamic, fibrous structure essential in many cellular processes including cell division and cytoplasmic streaming. This structure is stimulus responsive, being affected by internal stimuli, by biotic and abiotic stresses mediated in signal transduction pathways by actin–binding proteins. The completion of the Arabidopsis genome sequence has allowed a comparative identification of many actin–binding proteins. However, not all are conserved in plants, which possibly reflects the differences in the processes involved in morphogenesis between plant and other cells. Here we have searched for the Arabidopsis equivalents of 67 animal/fungal actin–binding proteins and show that 36 are not conserved in plants. One protein that is conserved across phylogeny is actin–depolymerizing factor or cofilin and we describe our work on the activity of vegetative tissue and pollen–specific isoforms of this protein in plant cells, concluding that they are functionally distinct.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leiyun Yang ◽  
Zhixue Wang ◽  
Jian Hua

Plant intracellular immune receptor NLR (nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat) proteins sense the presence of pathogens and trigger strong and robust immune responses. NLR genes are known to be tightly controlled at the protein level, but little is known about their dynamics at the transcript level. In this study, we presented a meta-analysis of transcript dynamics of all 207 NLR genes in the Col-0 accession of Arabidopsis thaliana under various biotic and abiotic stresses based on 88 publicly available RNA sequencing datasets from 27 independent studies. We find that about two thirds of the NLR genes are generally induced by pathogens, immune elicitors, or salicylic acid (SA), suggesting that transcriptional induction of NLR genes might be an important mechanism in plant immunity regulation. By contrast, NLR genes induced by biotic stresses are often repressed by abscisic acid, high temperature and drought, suggesting that transcriptional regulation of NLR genes might be important for interaction between abiotic and biotic stress responses. In addition, pathogen-induced expression of some NLR genes are dependent on SA induction. Interestingly, a small group of NLR genes are repressed under certain biotic stress treatments, suggesting an unconventional function of this group of NLRs. This meta-analysis thus reveals the transcript dynamics of NLR genes under biotic and abiotic stress conditions and suggests a contribution of NLR transcript regulation to plant immunity as well as interactions between abiotic and biotic stress responses.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fangwei Yu ◽  
Shenyun Wang ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Hong Wang ◽  
Li Yu ◽  
...  

Abstract The members of myeloblastosis transcription factor (MYB TF) family are involved in the regulation of biotic and abiotic stresses in plants. However, the role of MYB TF in phosphorus remobilization remains largely unexplored. In the present study, we show that an R2R3 type MYB transcription factor, MYB103, is involved in phosphorus (P) remobilization. MYB103 was remarkably induced by P deficiency in cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata L.). As cabbage lacks the proper mutant for elucidating the mechanism of MYB103 in P deficiency, another member of the crucifer family, Arabidopsis thaliana was chosen for further study. The transcript of its homologue AtMYB103 was also elevated in response to P deficiency in A. thaliana, while disruption of AtMYB103 (myb103) exhibited increased sensitivity to P deficiency, accompanied with decreased tissue biomass and soluble P concentration. Furthermore, AtMYB103 was involved in the P reutilization from cell wall, as less P was released from the cell wall in myb103 than in wildtype, coinciding with the reduction of ethylene production. Taken together, our results uncover an important role of MYB103 in the P remobilization, presumably through ethylene signaling.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Zengzhi Si ◽  
Yake Qiao ◽  
Kai Zhang ◽  
Zhixin Ji ◽  
Jinling Han

Sweetpotato, <i>Ipomoea batatas</i> (L.) Lam., is an important and widely grown crop, yet its production is affected severely by biotic and abiotic stresses. The nucleotide binding site (NBS)-encoding genes have been shown to improve stress tolerance in several plant species. However, the characterization of NBS-encoding genes in sweetpotato is not well-documented to date. In this study, a comprehensive analysis of NBS-encoding genes has been conducted on this species by using bioinformatics and molecular biology methods. A total of 315 NBS-encoding genes were identified, and 260 of them contained all essential conserved domains while 55 genes were truncated. Based on domain architectures, the 260 NBS-encoding genes were grouped into 6 distinct categories. Phylogenetic analysis grouped these genes into 3 classes: TIR, CC (I), and CC (II). Chromosome location analysis revealed that the distribution of NBS-encoding genes in chromosomes was uneven, with a number ranging from 1 to 34. Multiple stress-related regulatory elements were detected in the promoters, and the NBS-encoding genes’ expression profiles under biotic and abiotic stresses were obtained. According to the bioinformatics analysis, 9 genes were selected for RT-qPCR analysis. The results revealed that <i>IbNBS75</i>, <i>IbNBS219</i>, and <i>IbNBS256</i> respond to stem nematode infection; <i>Ib­NBS240</i>, <i>IbNBS90</i>, and <i>IbNBS80</i> respond to cold stress, while <i>IbNBS208</i>, <i>IbNBS71</i>, and <i>IbNBS159</i> respond to 30% PEG treatment. We hope these results will provide new insights into the evolution of NBS-encoding genes in the sweetpotato genome and contribute to the molecular breeding of sweetpotato in the future.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 456-475
Author(s):  
Efat Zohra ◽  
Muhammad Ikram ◽  
Ahmad A. Omar ◽  
Mujahid Hussain ◽  
Seema Hassan Satti ◽  
...  

Abstract In the present era, due to the increasing incidence of environmental stresses worldwide, the developmental growth and production of agriculture crops may be restrained. Selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) have precedence over other nanoparticles because of the significant role of selenium in activating the defense system of plants. In addition to beneficial microorganisms, the use of biogenic SeNPs is known as an environmentally friendly and ecologically biocompatible approach to enhance crop production by alleviating biotic and abiotic stresses. This review provides the latest development in the green synthesis of SeNPs by using the results of plant secondary metabolites in the biogenesis of nanoparticles of different shapes and sizes with unique morphologies. Unfortunately, green synthesized SeNPs failed to achieve significant attention in the agriculture sector. However, research studies were performed to explore the application potential of plant-based SeNPs in alleviating drought, salinity, heavy metal, heat stresses, and bacterial and fungal diseases in plants. This review also explains the mechanistic actions that the biogenic SeNPs acquire to alleviate biotic and abiotic stresses in plants. In this review article, the future research that needs to use plant-mediated SeNPs under the conditions of abiotic and biotic stresses are also highlighted.


Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Ana L. Villagómez-Aranda ◽  
Luis F. García-Ortega ◽  
Irineo Torres-Pacheco ◽  
Ramón G. Guevara-González

Epigenetic regulation is a key component of stress responses, acclimatization and adaptation processes in plants. DNA methylation is a stable mark plausible for the inheritance of epigenetic traits, such that it is a potential scheme for plant breeding. However, the effect of modulators of stress responses, as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), in the methylome status has not been elucidated. A transgenic tobacco model to the CchGLP gene displayed high H2O2 endogen levels correlated with biotic and abiotic stresses resistance. The present study aimed to determine the DNA methylation status changes in the transgenic model to obtain more information about the molecular mechanism involved in resistance phenotypes. The Whole-genome bisulfite sequencing analysis revealed a minimal impact of overall levels and distribution of methylation. A total of 9432 differential methylated sites were identified in distinct genome regions, most of them in CHG context, with a trend to hypomethylation. Of these, 1117 sites corresponded to genes, from which 83 were also differentially expressed in the plants. Several genes were associated with respiration, energy, and calcium signaling. The data obtained highlighted the relevance of the H2O2 in the homeostasis of the system in stress conditions, affecting at methylation level and suggesting an association of the H2O2 in the physiological adaptation to stress functional linkages may be regulated in part by DNA methylation.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 721
Author(s):  
Srinivasaraghavan Kannan ◽  
Pietro G. A. Aronica ◽  
Thanh Binh Nguyen ◽  
Jianguo Li ◽  
Chandra S. Verma

S100B(ββ) proteins are a family of multifunctional proteins that are present in several tissues and regulate a wide variety of cellular processes. Their altered expression levels have been associated with several human diseases, such as cancer, inflammatory disorders and neurodegenerative conditions, and hence are of interest as a therapeutic target and a biomarker. Small molecule inhibitors of S100B(ββ) have achieved limited success. Guided by the wealth of available experimental structures of S100B(ββ) in complex with diverse peptides from various protein interacting partners, we combine comparative structural analysis and molecular dynamics simulations to design a series of peptides and their analogues (stapled) as S100B(ββ) binders. The stapled peptides were subject to in silico mutagenesis experiments, resulting in optimized analogues that are predicted to bind to S100B(ββ) with high affinity, and were also modified with imaging agents to serve as diagnostic tools. These stapled peptides can serve as theranostics, which can be used to not only diagnose the levels of S100B(ββ) but also to disrupt the interactions of S100B(ββ) with partner proteins which drive disease progression, thus serving as novel therapeutics.


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