scholarly journals Populus euphratica Apyrases Increase Drought Tolerance by Modulating Stomatal Aperture in Arabidopsis

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (18) ◽  
pp. 9892
Author(s):  
Yanli Zhang ◽  
Yuanling Sun ◽  
Xiaojing Liu ◽  
Jiayin Deng ◽  
Jun Yao ◽  
...  

Stomatal regulation is crucial to reduce water consumption under drought conditions. Extracellular ATP (eATP) serves as a signaling agent in stomatal regulation; however, it is less known whether the eATP mediation of stomatal aperture is linked to apyrases (APYs), the principal enzymes that control the concentration of eATP. To clarify the role of APYs in stomatal control, PeAPY1 and PeAPY2 were isolated from Populus euphratica and transferred into Arabidopsis. Compared with the wild-type Arabidopsis and loss-of-function mutants (Atapy1 and Atapy2), PeAPY1- and PeAPY2-transgenic plants decreased stomatal aperture under mannitol treatment (200 mM, 2 h) and reduced water loss during air exposure (90 min). The role of apyrase in stomatal regulation resulted from its control in eATP-regulated stomatal movements and increased stomatal sensitivity to ABA. The bi-phasic dose-responses to applied nucleotides, i.e., the low ATP (0.3–1.0 mM)-promoted opening and high ATP (>2.0 mM)-promoted closure, were both restricted by P. euphratica apyrases. It is noteworthy that eATP at a low concentration (0.3 mM) counteracted ABA action in the regulation of stomatal aperture, while overexpression of PeAPY1 or PeAPY2 effectively diminished eATP promotion in opening, and consequently enhanced ABA action in closure. We postulate a speculative model of apyrase signaling in eATP- and ABA-regulated stomatal movements under drought.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne M. Hildebrand ◽  
Bernice Lo ◽  
Sara Tomei ◽  
Valentina Mattei ◽  
Samuel N. Young ◽  
...  

AbstractMaturity-onset diabetes of the young, MODY, is an autosomal dominant disease with incomplete penetrance. In a family with multiple generations of diabetes and several early onset diabetic siblings, we found the previously reported P33T PDX1 damaging mutation. Interestingly, this substitution was also present in a healthy sibling. In contrast, a second very rare heterozygous damaging mutation in the necroptosis terminal effector, MLKL, was found exclusively in the diabetic family members. Aberrant cell death by necroptosis is a cause of inflammatory diseases and has been widely implicated in human pathologies, but has not yet been attributed functions in diabetes. Here, we report that the MLKL substitution observed in diabetic patients, G316D, results in diminished phosphorylation by its upstream activator, the RIPK3 kinase, and no capacity to reconstitute necroptosis in two distinct MLKL−/− human cell lines. This MLKL mutation may act as a modifier to the P33T PDX1 mutation, and points to a potential role of impairment of necroptosis in diabetes. Our findings highlight the importance of family studies in unraveling MODY’s incomplete penetrance, and provide further support for the involvement of dysregulated necroptosis in human disease.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria I. Alvarez-Vergara ◽  
Alicia E. Rosales-Nieves ◽  
Rosana March-Diaz ◽  
Guiomar Rodriguez-Perinan ◽  
Nieves Lara-Ureña ◽  
...  

AbstractThe human Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brain accumulates angiogenic markers but paradoxically, the cerebral microvasculature is reduced around Aß plaques. Here we demonstrate that angiogenesis is started near Aß plaques in both AD mouse models and human AD samples. However, endothelial cells express the molecular signature of non-productive angiogenesis (NPA) and accumulate, around Aß plaques, a tip cell marker and IB4 reactive vascular anomalies with reduced NOTCH activity. Notably, NPA induction by endothelial loss of presenilin, whose mutations cause familial AD and which activity has been shown to decrease with age, produced a similar vascular phenotype in the absence of Aß pathology. We also show that Aß plaque-associated NPA locally disassembles blood vessels, leaving behind vascular scars, and that microglial phagocytosis contributes to the local loss of endothelial cells. These results define the role of NPA and microglia in local blood vessel disassembly and highlight the vascular component of presenilin loss of function in AD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhimei Qiu ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Weiwei Liu ◽  
Chaofu Li ◽  
Ranzun Zhao ◽  
...  

AbstractAutophagy and apoptosis are involved in myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Research indicates that circular RNA HIPK3 (circHIPK3) is crucial to cell autophagy and apoptosis in various cancer types. However, the role of circHIPK3 in the regulation of cardiomyocyte autophagy and apoptosis during I/R remains unknown. Our study aimed to examine the regulatory effect of circHIPK3 during myocardial I/R and investigate its mechanism in cardiomyocyte autophagy and apoptosis. Methods and results. The expression of circHIPK3 was upregulated during myocardial I/R injury and hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) injury of cardiomyocytes. To study the potential role of circHIPK3 in myocardial H/R injury, we performed gain-of-function and loss-of-function analyses of circHIPK3 in cardiomyocytes. Overexpression of circHIPK3 significantly promoted H/R-induced cardiomyocyte autophagy and cell injury (increased intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and apoptosis) compared to those in the control group, while silencing of circHIPK3 showed the opposite effect. Further research found that circHIPK3 acted as an endogenous miR-20b-5p sponge to sequester and inhibit miR-20b-5p activity, resulting in increased ATG7 expression. In addition, miR-20b-5p inhibitors reversed the decrease in ATG7 induced by silencing circHIPK3. Conclusions. CircHIPK3 can accelerate cardiomyocyte autophagy and apoptosis during myocardial I/R injury through the miR-20b-5p/ATG7 axis. These data suggest that circHIPK3 may serve as a potential therapeutic target for I/R.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (Supplement_3) ◽  
pp. iii401-iii401
Author(s):  
Sarah Injac ◽  
L Frank Huang ◽  
Stephen Mack ◽  
Frank Braun ◽  
Yuchen Du ◽  
...  

Abstract Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common malignant brain tumor of childhood. Despite major advances in our understanding of the biology of MB, novel treatments remain urgently needed. Using a chemical-genomics driven drug repositioning strategy, we identified the cardiac glycoside family of compounds as potential treatments for Group 3 MB. We subsequently demonstrated that single-agent treatment with digoxin prolongs survival in a patient-derived xenograft model (PDOX) of Group 3 MB to a degree comparable to radiation therapy, a mainstay in the treatment of MB. Finally, we examined the mechanism of digoxin-mediated cell killing using RNA-seq. This work identified LHX9, a member of the LIM homeobox family of transcription factors, as the gene most significantly down-regulated following treatment (Huang and Injac et al, Sci Trans Medicine, 2018). Homologs of LHX9 play key roles in cerebellar development via spatially and temporally restricted expression and LHX9 has been proposed as a core transcription factor (TF) in the regulatory circuitry of Group 3 tumors. Loss of function of other core TFs has been shown to impact MB growth. The role of LHX9 in MB, however, has not been previously experimentally evaluated. We now report that knockdown of LHX9 in MB-derived cell lines results in marked growth inhibition raising the possibility that loss of LHX9 plays a major role in digoxin-mediated cell killing and that LHX9 represents a key dependency required for the growth of Group 3 MB. Clinical targeting of core TFs would represent a novel approach to targeting this devastating disease.


2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (11) ◽  
pp. 6873-6881 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Winglee ◽  
Shichun Lun ◽  
Marco Pieroni ◽  
Alan Kozikowski ◽  
William Bishai

ABSTRACTDrug resistance is a major problem inMycobacterium tuberculosiscontrol, and it is critical to identify novel drug targets and new antimycobacterial compounds. We have previously identified an imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine-4-carbonitrile-based agent, MP-III-71, with strong activity againstM. tuberculosis. In this study, we evaluated mechanisms of resistance to MP-III-71. We derived three independentM. tuberculosismutants resistant to MP-III-71 and conducted whole-genome sequencing of these mutants. Loss-of-function mutations inRv2887were common to all three MP-III-71-resistant mutants, and we confirmed the role ofRv2887as a gene required for MP-III-71 susceptibility using complementation. The Rv2887 protein was previously unannotated, but domain and homology analyses suggested it to be a transcriptional regulator in the MarR (multiple antibiotic resistance repressor) family, a group of proteins first identified inEscherichia colito negatively regulate efflux pumps and other mechanisms of multidrug resistance. We found that two efflux pump inhibitors, verapamil and chlorpromazine, potentiate the action of MP-III-71 and that mutation ofRv2887abrogates their activity. We also used transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) to identify genes which are differentially expressed in the presence and absence of a functional Rv2887 protein. We found that genes involved in benzoquinone and menaquinone biosynthesis were repressed by functional Rv2887. Thus, inactivating mutations ofRv2887, encoding a putative MarR-like transcriptional regulator, confer resistance to MP-III-71, an effective antimycobacterial compound that shows no cross-resistance to existing antituberculosis drugs. The mechanism of resistance ofM. tuberculosisRv2887mutants may involve efflux pump upregulation and also drug methylation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (12) ◽  
pp. 2041-2054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xilong Li ◽  
Michael J. Large ◽  
Chad J. Creighton ◽  
Rainer B. Lanz ◽  
Jae-Wook Jeong ◽  
...  

Chicken ovalbumin upstream promoter-transcription factor II (COUP-TFII; NR2F2) is an orphan nuclear receptor involved in cell-fate specification, organogenesis, angiogenesis, and metabolism. Ablation of COUP-TFII in the mouse uterus causes infertility due to defects in embryo attachment and impaired uterine stromal cell decidualization. Although the function of COUP-TFII in uterine decidualization has been described in mice, its role in the human uterus remains unknown. We observed that, as in mice, COUP-TFII is robustly expressed in the endometrial stroma of healthy women, and its expression is reduced in the ectopic lesions of women with endometriosis. To interrogate the role of COUP-TFII in human endometrial function, we used a small interfering RNA-mediated loss of function approach in primary human endometrial stromal cells. Attenuation of COUP-TFII expression did not completely block decidualization; rather it had a selective effect on gene expression. To better elucidate the role of COUP-TFII in endometrial stroma cell biology, the COUP-TFII transcriptome was defined by pairing microarray comparison with chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by deep sequencing. Gene ontology analysis demonstrates that COUP-TFII regulates a subset of genes in endometrial stroma cell decidualization such as those involved in cell adhesion, angiogenesis, and inflammation. Importantly this analysis shows that COUP-TFII plays a role in controlling the expression of inflammatory cytokines. The determination that COUP-TFII plays a role in inflammation may add insight into the role of COUP-TFII in embryo implantation and in endometrial diseases such as endometriosis.


2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (23) ◽  
pp. 10315-10328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yukinori Minoshima ◽  
Tetsuya Hori ◽  
Masahiro Okada ◽  
Hiroshi Kimura ◽  
Tokuko Haraguchi ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We identified CENP-50 as a novel kinetochore component. We found that CENP-50 is a constitutive component of the centromere that colocalizes with CENP-A and CENP-H throughout the cell cycle in vertebrate cells. To determine the precise role of CENP-50, we examined its role in centromere function by generating a loss-of-function mutant in the chicken DT40 cell line. The CENP-50 knockout was not lethal; however, the growth rate of cells with this mutation was slower than that of wild-type cells. We observed that the time for CENP-50-deficient cells to complete mitosis was longer than that for wild-type cells. Centromeric localization of CENP-50 was abolished in both CENP-H- and CENP-I-deficient cells. Coimmunoprecipitation experiments revealed that CENP-50 interacted with the CENP-H/CENP-I complex in chicken DT40 cells. We also observed severe mitotic defects in CENP-50-deficient cells with apparent premature sister chromatid separation when the mitotic checkpoint was activated, indicating that CENP-50 is required for recovery from spindle damage.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Upasana Shokal ◽  
Ioannis Eleftherianos

Despite important progress in identifying the molecules that participate in the immune response of Drosophila melanogaster to microbial infections, the involvement of thioester-containing proteins (TEPs) in the antibacterial immunity of the fly is not fully clarified. Previous studies mostly focused on identifying the function of TEP2, TEP3 and TEP6 molecules in the D. melanogaster immune system. Here, we investigated the role of TEP4 in the regulation and function of D. melanogaster host defense against 2 virulent pathogens from the genus Photorhabdus, i.e. the insect pathogenic bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens and the emerging human pathogen P. asymbiotica. We demonstrate that Tep4 is strongly upregulated in adult flies following the injection of Photorhabdus bacteria. We also show that Tep4 loss-of-function mutants are resistant to P. luminescens but not to P. asymbiotica infection. In addition, we find that inactivation of Tep4 results in the upregulation of the Toll and Imd immune pathways, and the downregulation of the Jak/Stat and Jnk pathways upon Photorhabdus infection. We document that loss of Tep4 promotes melanization and phenoloxidase activity in the mutant flies infected with Photorhabdus. Together, these findings generate novel insights into the immune role of TEP4 as a regulator and effector of the D. melanogaster antibacterial immune response.


2015 ◽  
Vol 88 (5) ◽  
pp. 483-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittany E. Bjelde ◽  
Nathan A. Miller ◽  
Jonathon H. Stillman ◽  
Anne E. Todgham
Keyword(s):  

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.D. Lledó ◽  
M.B. Crespo ◽  
J.B. Amo-Marco

Populus euphratica Olivier is native to the Irano—Turanian areas (Middle East). Elche (Alicante province, SE Spain) is known to be its only European location. Nodal segments from root shoots were established in vitro in a Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with several cytokinins. Ethylene inhibitors AgNO3 and CoCl2 were used in combination with kinetin. Hormone-free media supplemented with sucrose (20–60 mg 1−1) was also tested. Ethylene was measured by gas chromatography, and both the percentage of sprouting shoots and lenticel hypertrophy in cultures were recorded. Ethylene production was higher in cultures supplemented with cytokinins (especially with meta-topolin), with high sprouting percentages, and lenticel hypertrophy. In cultures supplemented with 6-benzylaminopurine or 6-(γ,γ,-dimethylallylamino)-purine, ethylene production was lower and explants looked unhealthy. Ethylene formation was inhibited in cultures supplemented with AgNO3 (1 mg 1−1), which also decreased percentage of sprouting buds and lenticel hypertrophy.


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