The Resistance Responses of Potato Plants to Potato Virus Y Are Associated with an Increased Cellular Methionine Content and an Altered SAM:SAH Methylation Index.

Plant-virus interactions are frequently influenced by elevated temperature, which often increases susceptibility to a virus, a scenario described for potato cultivar Chicago infected with potato virus Y (PVY). In contrast, other potato cultivars such as Gala may have similar resistances to PVY at both normal (22 °C) and high (28 °C) temperatures. To elucidate the mechanisms of temperature-independent antivirus resistance in potato, we analysed responses of Gala plants to PVY at different temperatures using proteomic, transcriptional and metabolic approaches. Here we show that in Gala, PVY infection generally upregulates the accumulation of major enzymes associated with the methionine cycle (MTC) independently of temperature, but that temperature (22 °C or 28 °C) may finely regulate what classes accumulate. The different sets of MTC-related enzymes that are up-regulated at 22 °C or 28 °C likely account for the significantly increased accumulation of S-adenosyl methionine (SAM), a key component of MTC which acts as a universal methyl donor in methylation reactions. In contrast to this, we found that in cultivar Chicago, SAM levels were significantly reduced which correlated with the enhanced susceptibility to PVY at high temperature. Collectively, these data suggest that MTC and its major transmethylation function determines resistance or susceptibility to PVY.

Quantitative analysis of differential dehydrin regulation in pine and spruce seedlings under water deficit.

Dehydrins are well-known components of plant responses to different stresses that cause dehydration, including drought, freezing, salinity, etc. In conifers, the dehydrin gene family is very large, implying that the members of this family have important physiological functions in conifer stress tolerance. However, dehydrin gene expression displays a wide range of responses to stress, from thousand-fold increased expression to decreased expression, and it is generally unknown how regulatory systems are connected at the mRNA and protein levels. Therefore, we studied these aspects of dehydrin regulation in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst) seedlings under polyethylene glycol 6000-induced osmotic stress ranging from relatively low (culture medium water potential of -0.15 MPa) to very high (-1.0 MPa) intensities. In pine, the major dehydrin protein was Dhn1 in both the roots and needles, and in spruce, two isoforms of the Dhn4 protein were the major dehydrins; both of these proteins are AESK-type dehydrins. The genes encoding these major proteins were highly expressed even under control conditions; surprisingly, we also observed several highly expressed dehydrin genes that were not abundantly translated. Under osmotic stress, the most prominent expression changes were observed for the dehydrin genes with low basal expression levels, whereas highly expressed genes generally demonstrated rather modest changes in expression. We report proposed constitutive physiological functions of the AESK-type dehydrins in Pinaceae plants.

Specific pools of endogenous peptides are present in gametophore, protonema, and protoplast cells of the moss Physcomitrella patens.

BACKGROUND: Protein degradation is a basic cell process that operates in general protein turnover or to produce bioactive peptides. However, very little is known about the qualitative and quantitative composition of a plant cell peptidome, the actual result of this degradation. In this study we comprehensively analyzed a plant cell peptidome and systematically analyzed the peptide generation process. RESULTS: We thoroughly analyzed native peptide pools of Physcomitrella patens moss in two developmental stages as well as in protoplasts. Peptidomic analysis was supplemented by transcriptional profiling and quantitative analysis of precursor proteins. In total, over 20,000 unique endogenous peptides, ranging in size from 5 to 78 amino acid residues, were identified. We showed that in both the protonema and protoplast states, plastid proteins served as the main source of peptides and that their major fraction formed outside of chloroplasts. However, in general, the composition of peptide pools was very different between these cell types. In gametophores, stress-related proteins, e.g., late embryogenesis abundant proteins, were among the most productive precursors. The Driselase-mediated protonema conversion to protoplasts led to a peptide generation "burst", with a several-fold increase in the number of components in the latter. Degradation of plastid proteins in protoplasts was accompanied by suppression of photosynthetic activity. CONCLUSION: We suggest that peptide pools in plant cells are not merely a product of waste protein degradation, but may serve as important functional components for plant metabolism. We assume that the peptide "burst" is a form of biotic stress response that might produce peptides with antimicrobial activity from originally functional proteins. Potential functions of peptides in different developmental stages are discussed.