scholarly journals HC-Pro protein of sugar cane mosaic virus interacts specifically with maize ferredoxin-5 in vitro and in planta

2008 ◽  
Vol 89 (8) ◽  
pp. 2046-2054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Qin Cheng ◽  
Zhong-Mei Liu ◽  
Jian Xu ◽  
Tao Zhou ◽  
Meng Wang ◽  
...  

Symptom development of a plant viral disease is a result of molecular interactions between the virus and its host plant; thus, the elucidation of specific interactions is a prerequisite to reveal the mechanism of viral pathogenesis. Here, we show that the chloroplast precursor of ferredoxin-5 (Fd V) from maize (Zea mays) interacts with the multifunctional HC-Pro protein of sugar cane mosaic virus (SCMV) in yeast, Nicotiana benthamiana cells and maize protoplasts. Our results demonstrate that the transit peptide rather than the mature protein of Fd V precursor could interact with both N-terminal (residues 1–100) and C-terminal (residues 301–460) fragments, but not the middle part (residues 101–300), of HC-Pro. In addition, SCMV HC-Pro interacted only with Fd V, and not with the other two photosynthetic ferredoxin isoproteins (Fd I and Fd II) from maize plants. SCMV infection significantly downregulated the level of Fd V mRNA in maize plants; however, no obvious changes were observed in levels of Fd I and Fd II mRNA. These results suggest that SCMV HC-Pro interacts specifically with maize Fd V and that this interaction may disturb the post-translational import of Fd V into maize bundle-sheath cell chloroplasts, which could lead to the perturbation of chloroplast structure and function.

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 3747
Author(s):  
Matthaios Mathioudakis ◽  
Souheyla Khechmar ◽  
Carolyn Owen ◽  
Vicente Medina ◽  
Karima Ben Mansour ◽  
...  

Pepino mosaic virus (PepMV) is a mechanically-transmitted tomato pathogen of importance worldwide. Interactions between the PepMV coat protein and triple gene block protein (TGBp1) with the host heat shock cognate protein 70 and catalase 1 (CAT1), respectively, have been previously reported by our lab. In this study, a novel tomato interactor (SlTXND9) was shown to bind the PepMV TGBp1 in yeast-two-hybrid screening, in vitro pull-down and bimolecular fluorescent complementation (BiFC) assays. SlTXND9 possesses part of the conserved thioredoxin (TRX) active site sequence (W__PC vs. WCXPC), and TXND9 orthologues cluster within the TRX phylogenetic superfamily closest to phosducin-like protein-3. In PepMV-infected and healthy Nicotiana benthamiana plants, NbTXND9 mRNA levels were comparable, and expression levels remained stable in both local and systemic leaves for 10 days post inoculation (dpi), as was also the case for catalase 1 (CAT1). To localize the TXND9 in plant cells, a polyclonal antiserum was produced. Purified α-SlTXND9 immunoglobulin (IgG) consistently detected a set of three protein bands in the range of 27–35 kDa, in the 1000 and 30,000 g pellets, and the soluble fraction of extracts of healthy and PepMV-infected N. benthamiana leaves, but not in the cell wall. These bands likely consist of the homologous protein NbTXND9 and its post-translationally modified derivatives. On electron microscopy, immuno-gold labelling of ultrathin sections of PepMV-infected N. benthamiana leaves using α-SlTXND9 IgG revealed particle accumulation close to plasmodesmata, suggesting a role in virus movement. Taken together, this study highlights a novel tomato-PepMV protein interaction and provides data on its localization in planta. Currently, studies focusing on the biological function of this interaction during PepMV infection are in progress.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
YUANWEI FAN ◽  
Natasha Bilkey ◽  
Ram Dixit

Accruing evidence points to the control of microtubule minus-end dynamics as being crucial for the spatial arrangement and function of the microtubule cytoskeleton. In plants, the SPIRAL2 (SPR2) protein has emerged as a microtubule minus-end regulator that is structurally distinct from the animal minus-end regulators. Previously, SPR2 was shown to autonomously localize to microtubule minus ends and decrease their depolymerization rate. Here, we used in vitro and in planta experiments to identify the structural determinants required for SPR2 to recognize and stabilize microtubule minus ends. We show that SPR2 contains a single N-terminal TOG domain that binds to soluble tubulin. The TOG domain, a basic region, and coiled-coil domain are necessary and sufficient to target and stabilize microtubule minus ends. We demonstrate that the coiled-coil domain mediates multimerization of SPR2 that provides avidity for microtubule binding and is essential for binding to soluble tubulin. While TOG domain-containing proteins are traditionally thought to function as microtubule plus-end regulators, our results reveal that nature has repurposed the TOG domain of SPR2 to regulate microtubule minus ends.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 655
Author(s):  
Jieyang Jin ◽  
Shangrui Zhang ◽  
Mingyue Zhao ◽  
Tingting Jing ◽  
Na Zhang ◽  
...  

Terpenoids play vital roles in tea aroma quality and plants defense performance determination, whereas the scenarios of genes to metabolites of terpenes pathway remain uninvestigated in tea plants. Here, we report the use of an integrated approach combining metabolites, target gene transcripts and function analyses to reveal a gene-to-terpene network in tea plants. Forty-one terpenes including 26 monoterpenes, 14 sesquiterpenes and one triterpene were detected and 82 terpenes related genes were identified from five tissues of tea plants. Pearson correlation analysis resulted in genes to metabolites network. One terpene synthases whose expression positively correlated with farnesene were selected and its function was confirmed involved in the biosynthesis of α-farnesene, β-ocimene and β-farnesene, a very important and conserved alarm pheromone in response to aphids by both in vitro enzymatic assay in planta function analysis. In summary, we provided the first reliable gene-to-terpene network for novel genes discovery.


2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (10) ◽  
pp. 4991-5006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyoun-Sub Lim ◽  
Jennifer N. Bragg ◽  
Uma Ganesan ◽  
Diane M. Lawrence ◽  
Jialin Yu ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) encodes three movement proteins in an overlapping triple gene block (TGB), but little is known about the physical interactions of these proteins. We have characterized a ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex consisting of the TGB1 protein and plus-sense BSMV RNAs from infected barley plants and have identified TGB1 complexes in planta and in vitro. Homologous TGB1 binding was disrupted by site-specific mutations in each of the first two N-terminal helicase motifs but not by mutations in two C-terminal helicase motifs. The TGB2 and TGB3 proteins were not detected in the RNP, but affinity chromatography and yeast two-hybrid experiments demonstrated that TGB1 binds to TGB3 and that TGB2 and TGB3 form heterologous interactions. These interactions required the TGB2 glycine 40 and the TGB3 isoleucine 108 residues, and BSMV mutants containing these amino acid substitution were unable to move from cell to cell. Infectivity experiments indicated that TGB1 separated on a different genomic RNA from TGB2 and TGB3 could function in limited cell-to-cell movement but that the rates of movement depended on the levels of expression of the proteins and the contexts in which they are expressed. Moreover, elevated expression of the wild-type TGB3 protein interfered with cell-to-cell movement but movement was not affected by the similar expression of a TGB3 mutant that fails to interact with TGB2. These experiments suggest that BSMV movement requires physical interactions of TGB2 and TGB3 and that substantial deviation from the TGB protein ratios expressed by the wild-type virus compromises movement.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise M Tookmanian ◽  
Lisa Junghans ◽  
Gargi Kulkarni ◽  
Raphael Ledermann ◽  
James Peter Saenz ◽  
...  

Climate change poses a threat to soil health and agriculture, but the potential effects of climate change on soil bacteria that can help maintain soil health are understudied. Rhizobia are a group of bacteria that increase soil nitrogen content through a symbiosis with legume plants. The soil and symbiosis are potentially stressful environments, and the soil will likely become even more stressful as the climate changes. Many rhizobia within the bradyrhizobia clade, like Bradyrhizobium diazoefficiens, possess the genetic capacity to synthesize hopanoids, steroid-like lipids similar in structure and function to cholesterol. Hopanoids are known to protect against stresses relevant to the niche of B. diazoefficiens. Paradoxically, mutants unable to synthesize the extended class of hopanoids participate in similarly successful symbioses compared to the wild type, despite being delayed in root nodule initiation. Here, we show that in B. diazoefficiens, the in vitro growth defects of extended hopanoid deficient mutants can be at least partially compensated for by the physicochemical environment, specifically by optimal osmotic and divalent cation concentrations. Through biophysical measurements, we show that extended hopanoids confer robustness to environmental variability. These results help explain the discrepancy between previous in vitro and in planta results and indicate that hopanoids may provide a greater fitness advantage to rhizobia in the variable soil environment than the more controlled environment within root nodules. To improve the legume-rhizobia symbiosis through either bioengineering or strain selection, it will be important to consider the full lifecycle of rhizobia, from the soil to the symbiosis.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelby L Brown ◽  
Jared P. May

Phase separation concentrates biomolecules, which should benefit RNA viruses that must sequester viral and host factors during an infection. Here, the p26 movement protein from Pea enation mosaic virus 2 (PEMV2) was found to phase separate and partition in nucleoli and G3BP stress granules (SGs) in vivo . Electrostatic interactions drive p26 phase separation as mutation of basic (R/K-G) or acidic (D/E-G) residues either blocked or reduced phase separation, respectively. During infection, p26 must partition inside the nucleolus and interact with fibrillarin (Fib2) as a pre-requisite for systemic trafficking of viral RNAs. Partitioning of p26 in pre-formed Fib2 droplets was dependent on p26 phase separation suggesting that phase separation of viral movement proteins supports nucleolar partitioning and virus movement. Furthermore, viral ribonucleoprotein complexes containing p26, Fib2, and PEMV2 RNA were formed via phase separation in vitro and could provide the basis for self-assembly in planta . Interestingly, both R/K-G and D/E-G p26 mutants failed to support systemic trafficking of a Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) vector in Nicotiana benthamiana suggesting that p26 phase separation, proper nucleolar partitioning, and systemic movement are intertwined. p26 also partitioned in SGs and G3BP over-expression restricted PEMV2 accumulation >20-fold. Expression of phase separation-deficient G3BP only restricted PEMV2 5-fold, demonstrating that G3BP phase separation is critical for maximum antiviral activity.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucie Kriegshauser ◽  
Samuel Knosp ◽  
Etienne Grienenberger ◽  
Kanade Tatsumi ◽  
Desirée D. Gütle ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThe plant phenylpropanoid pathway generates a major class of specialized metabolites and precursors of essential extracellular polymers that initially appeared upon plant terrestrialization. Despite its evolutionary significance, little is known about the complexity and function of this major metabolic pathway in extant bryophytes, the ancestors of which were the first land plants. Here, we report that the HYDROXYCINNAMOYL-CoA:SHIKIMATE HYDROXYCINNAMOYL TRANSFERASE (HCT) gene, which plays a critical function in the phenylpropanoid pathway during seed plant development, is functionally conserved in Physcomitrium patens (Physcomitrella), in the moss lineage of bryophytes. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that bona fide HCT function emerged in the progenitor of embryophytes. In vitro enzyme assays, moss phenolic pathway reconstitution in yeast and in planta gene inactivation coupled to targeted metabolic profiling, collectively indicate that P. patens HCT (PpHCT), similar to tracheophyte HCT orthologs, uses shikimate as a native acyl acceptor to produce a p-coumaroyl-5-O-shikimate intermediate. Phenotypic and metabolic analyses of loss-of-function mutants show that PpHCT is necessary for the production of caffeate derivatives, including previously reported caffeoyl-threonate esters, and for the formation of an intact cuticle. Deep conservation of HCT function in embryophytes is further suggested by the ability of HCT genes from P. patens and the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha to complement an Arabidopsis thaliana CRISPR/Cas9 hct mutant, and by the presence of phenolic esters of shikimate in representative species of the three bryophyte lineages.


2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 648-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Champagne ◽  
Marie-Eve Laliberté-Gagné ◽  
Denis Leclerc

Cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) coat protein precursor (pre-CP) has 489 amino acids (p57) and is processed by the viral proteinase into three major forms: p44, p39, and p37. The N- and C-terminal extensions of pre-CP are released during maturation by the virus-encoded proteinase. We showed that these extensions are phosphorylated at several sites by host casein kinase II (CKII). We have identified the phosphorylated amino acids using an in vitro phosphorylation assay and tested the effect of mutation of these sites on viral infectivity. Mutation of serines S66, S68, and S72 to alanine in the N-terminal extension abolished phosphorylation of the protein in vitro. Also, mutation of all S and T residues in the C-terminus (450 to 489) made this region insensitive to CKII. Amino acid substitutions also were introduced into a full-length infectious clone of CaMV. Mutated forms of the virus with S66, S68, and S72 substituted with A or D showed a delay in symptom development and affected the infectivity of the virus. However, a mutant with an A substitution of all the S and T residues of the C-terminal extension of CP was not infectious. These results suggest that phosphorylation of the N- and C-termini of CaMV pre-CP plays an important role in the initiation of viral infection.


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