Exploring mechanisms involved in grape bud dormancy: Large-scale analysis of expression reprogramming following controlled dormancy induction and dormancy release

The timing of dormancy induction and release is very important to the economic production of table grape. Advances in manipulation of dormancy induction and dormancy release are dependent on the establishment of a comprehensive understanding of biological mechanisms involved in bud dormancy. To gain insight into these mechanisms we initiated the research that had two main objectives: A. Analyzing the expression profiles of large subsets of genes, following controlled dormancy induction and dormancy release, and assessing the role of known metabolic pathways, known regulatory genes and novel sequences involved in these processes B. Comparing expression profiles following the perception of various artificial as well as natural signals known to induce dormancy release, and searching for gene showing similar expression patterns, as candidates for further study of pathways having potential to play a central role in dormancy release. We first created targeted EST collections from V. vinifera and V. riparia mature buds. Clones were randomly selected from cDNA libraries prepared following controlled dormancy release and controlled dormancy induction and from respective controls. The entire collection (7920 vinifera and 1194 riparia clones) was sequenced and subjected to bioinformatics analysis, including clustering, annotations and GO classifications. PCR products from the entire collection were used for printing of cDNA microarrays. Bud tissue in general, and the dormant bud in particular, are under-represented within the grape EST database. Accordingly, 59% of the our vinifera EST collection, composed of 5516 unigenes, are not included within the current Vitis TIGR collection and about 22% of these transcripts bear no resemblance to any known plant transcript, corroborating the current need for our targeted EST collection and the bud specific cDNA array. Analysis of the V. riparia sequences yielded 814 unigenes, of which 140 are unique (keilin et al., manuscript, Appendix B). Results from computational expression profiling of the vinifera collection suggest that oxidative stress, calcium signaling, intracellular vesicle trafficking and anaerobic mode of carbohydrate metabolism play a role in the regulation and execution of grape-bud dormancy release. A comprehensive analysis confirmed the induction of transcription from several calcium–signaling related genes following HC treatment, and detected an inhibiting effect of calcium channel blocker and calcium chelator on HC-induced and chilling-induced bud break. It also detected the existence of HC-induced and calcium dependent protein phosphorylation activity. These data suggest, for the first time, that calcium signaling is involved in the mechanism of dormancy release (Pang et al., in preparation). We compared the effects of heat shock (HS) to those detected in buds following HC application and found that HS lead to earlier and higher bud break. We also demonstrated similar temporary reduction in catalase expression and temporary induction of ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase, thioredoxin and glutathione S transferase expression following both treatments. These findings further support the assumption that temporary oxidative stress is part of the mechanism leading to bud break. The temporary induction of sucrose syntase, pyruvate decarboxylase and alcohol dehydrogenase indicate that temporary respiratory stress is developed and suggest that mitochondrial function may be of central importance for that mechanism. These finding, suggesting triggering of identical mechanisms by HS and HC, justified the comparison of expression profiles of HC and HS treated buds, as a tool for the identification of pathways with a central role in dormancy release (Halaly et al., in preparation). RNA samples from buds treated with HS, HC and water were hybridized with the cDNA arrays in an interconnected loop design. Differentially expressed genes from the were selected using R-language package from Bioconductor project called LIMMA and clones showing a significant change following both HS and HC treatments, compared to control, were selected for further analysis. A total of 1541 clones show significant induction, of which 37% have no hit or unknown function and the rest represent 661 genes with identified function. Similarly, out of 1452 clones showing significant reduction, only 53% of the clones have identified function and they represent 573 genes. The 661 induced genes are involved in 445 different molecular functions. About 90% of those functions were classified to 20 categories based on careful survey of the literature. Among other things, it appears that carbohydrate metabolism and mitochondrial function may be of central importance in the mechanism of dormancy release and studies in this direction are ongoing. Analysis of the reduced function is ongoing (Appendix A). A second set of hybridizations was carried out with RNA samples from buds exposed to short photoperiod, leading to induction of bud dormancy, and long photoperiod treatment, as control. Analysis indicated that 42 genes were significant difference between LD and SD and 11 of these were unique.