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Water deficit is a critical factor obstructing the growth and survival of plant. Therefore, researchers have been trying to develop drought-resistant varieties. To find indicators of drought stress-tolerance of cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa), we analyzed the response of cypress seedlings from six provenances of Korea (Jeju, Suwon, Seoul, Seongnam, Yong-in, and Osan) to drought stress. Additionally, the genetic diversity of C. obtusa from the six provenances were determined using microsatellite markers. We confirmed that populations from Suwon and Seongnam were relatively separated from other populations through genetic distance and cluster analysis. We examined their physiologic and metabolic responses after drought treatment for five weeks. Almost all of the cypress seedlings showed a reduced shoot growth rate under drought treatment compared to controls. In addition, temperature of drought treated cypress seedling leaves was 1.2-2℃ higher than that of the controls. Almost all of the drought stress-treated cypress showed increased carbon metabolite contents and pigments. In particular, the cypress seedlings from Osan showed the highest increase in all of the measured metabolites. Therefore, it is suggested that the seedlings from Osan are susceptible to drought stress. Conversely, the seedlings from Jeju, Suwon, and Yong-in showed a lower sensitivity to drought treatment. These results indicate that the cypress trees from the six provenances have a different response to drought stress. In addition, it is confirmed that previously identified indicators of drought stress, especially those that measure total soluble sugar, carotenoid, and H2O2, can be used in the selection of drought resistance cypress. These findings may useful in studies concerned with the metabolic and physiological responses of young cypress to drought.

Global climate change is heavily affected by an increase in CO2. As one of several efforts to cope with this, research on poplar, a representative, fast growing, and model organism in plants, is actively underway. The effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 on the metabolism, growth, and transcriptome of poplar were investigated to predict productivity in an environment where CO2 concentrations are increasing. Poplar trees were grown at ambient (400 ppm) or elevated CO2 concentrations (1.4× ambient, 560 ppm, and 1.8× ambient, 720 ppm) for 16 weeks in open-top chambers (OTCs). We analyzed the differences in the transcriptomes of Populusalba × Populus glandulosa clone “Clivus” and Populus euramericana clone “I-476” using high-throughput sequencing techniques and elucidated the functions of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) using various functional annotation methods. About 272,355 contigs and 207,063 unigenes were obtained from transcriptome assembly with the Trinity assembly package. Common DEGs were identified which were consistently regulated in both the elevated CO2 concentrations. In Clivus 29, common DEGs were found, and most of these correspond to cell wall proteins, especially hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins (HRGP), or related to fatty acid metabolism. Concomitantly, in I-476, 25 were identified, and they were related to heat shock protein (HSP) chaperone family, photosynthesis, nitrogen metabolism, and carbon metabolism. In addition, carbohydrate contents, including starch and total soluble sugar, were significantly increased in response to elevated CO2. These data should be useful for future gene discovery, molecular studies, and tree improvement strategies for the upcoming increased-CO2 environments.

In plants, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is a main enzyme in the glycolytic pathway. It plays an essential role in glycerolipid metabolism and response to various stresses. To examine the function of PsGAPDH (Pleurotus sajor-caju GAPDH) in response to abiotic stress, we generated transgenic rice plants with single-copy/intergenic/homozygous overexpression PsGAPDH (PsGAPDH-OX) and investigated their responses to salinity stress. Seedling growth and germination rates of PsGAPDH-OX were significantly increased under salt stress conditions compared to those of the wild type. To elucidate the role of PsGAPDH-OX in salt stress tolerance of rice, an Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform was used to analyze transcriptome profiles of leaves under salt stress. Analysis results of sequencing data showed that 1124 transcripts were differentially expressed. Using the list of differentially expressed genes (DEGs), functional enrichment analyses of DEGs such as Gene Ontology (GO) terms and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways were performed. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis revealed that unigenes exhibiting differential expression were involved in starch and sucrose metabolism. Interestingly, trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) genes, of which expression was enhanced by abiotic stress, showed a significant difference in PsGAPDH-OX. Findings of this study suggest that PsGAPDH plays a role in the adaptation of rice plants to salt stress.

Cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD) is involved in the final step of the phenylpropanod pathway, catalyzing the NADPH-dependent reduction of hydroxy-cinnamaldehydes into the corresponding alcohols. The rice genome contains twelve CAD and CAD-like genes, collectively called OsCADs. To elucidate the biochemical function of the OsCADs, OsCAD1, 2, 6, and 7, which are highly expressed in rice, were cloned from rice tissues. The cloned OsCADs were heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli as His-tag fusion proteins. The activity assay of the recombinant OsCADs showed that OsCAD2, 6, and 7 have CAD activity toward hydroxycinnamaldehydes, but OsCAD1 has no detectable catalytic activity. The kinetic parameters of the enzyme reactions demonstrated that OsCAD2 has the highest catalytic activity among the examined enzymes. This result agrees well with the finding that the Zn binding and NADPH binding motifs and the residues constituting the substrate binding pocket in bona fide plant CADs were fully conserved in OsCAD2. Although they have large variations in the residue for the substrate binding pocket, OsCAD6 and 7 catalyzed the reduction of hydroxycinnamaldehydes with a similar efficiency. Alignment of amino acid sequences showed that OsCAD1 lacks the GxxxxP motif for NADPH binding and has mismatches in residues important in the reduction process, which could be responsible for the loss of catalytic activity. OsCAD2 belongs to CAD Class I with bona fide CADs from other plant species and is constitutively expressed throughout the developmental stages of rice, with preferential expression in actively lignifying tissues such as the root, stem, and panicle, suggesting that it is mainly involved in developmental lignification in rice. The expression of OsCAD2 was also induced by biotic and abiotic stresses such as Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) infection and UV-irradiation, suggesting that it plays a role in the defense response of rice, in addition to a bona fide role in developmental lignification. OsCAD6 and 7 belong in CAD Class II. Their expression is relatively lower than that of OsCAD2 and is confined to certain tissues, such as the leaf sheath, stem, and panicle. The expression of OsCAD6 was stimulated by Xoo infection and UV-irradiation. Thus OsCAD6 appears to be an inducible OsCAD that is likely involved in the defense response of rice against biotic and abiotic stresses.

Sugar is appreciated to function as a signaling molecule by controlling gene expression, thereby regulating various developmental processes in plants. We screened sucrose-insensitive (sin) mutants in Arabidopsis that showed normal germination and seedling development under high concentration (438 mM) of sucrose. Compared to wild-type and other sugar mutants, sin mutants seedlings exhibited resistance to high glucose, high salt, and paclobutrazol, inhibitor of gibberellin biosynthesis. We discuss the unique characteristics of these sin mutants in this report.

Estrogens act through interactions with estrogen receptors (ERs) to play diverse roles in various pathophysiological conditions. A number of synthetic selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), such as tamoxifen and raloxifene, have been developed and used to treat ER-related diseases, including breast cancer and osteoporosis. Here, we identified a novel compound, bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)methanone-O-isopentyl oxime, designated NJK14013, as an ER agonist. NJK14013 activated ER-dependent transcription in a concentration-dependent manner, while suppressing androgen receptor-dependent transcriptional activity. It induced the activation-related phosphorylation of ER and enhanced the transcription of growth regulation by estrogen in breast cancer 1 (GREB1), further supporting its ER-stimulating activity. NJK14013 exerted anti-proliferative effects on various cancer cell lines, including an ER-negative breast cancer cell line, suggesting that it is capable of suppressing the growth of cancer cells independent of its ER-modulating activity. In addition, NJK14013 treatment resulted in significant apoptotic death of MCF7 and Ishikawa cancer cells, but did not induce apoptosis in non-cancer human umbilical vein endothelial cells. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that NJK14013 is a novel SERM that can activate ER-mediated transcription in MCF7 cells and suppress the proliferation of various cancer cells, including breast cancer cells and endometrial cancer cells. These results suggest that NJK14013 has potential as a novel SERM for anticancer or hormone-replacement therapy with reduced risk of carcinogenesis.

Bacteriophytochromes (BphP) are phytochrome-like light sensing proteins in bacteria, which use biliverdin as a chromophore. In order to study the biochemical properties of the DrBphP protein, five (2B8, 2C11, 3B2, 3D2, and 3H7) anti-DrBphP monoclonal antibodies were produced through the immunization of mice with purified full-length DrBphP and DrBphN (1–321 amino acid) proteins, and epitope mapping was then carried out. Among the five antibodies, 2B8 and 2C11 preferentially recognized the N-terminal region of BphP whereas 3B2, 3D2, and 3H7 showed preference for the C-terminal region. We performed further epitope mapping using recombinant truncated BphP proteins to narrow down their target sequences. The results demonstrated that each of the five monoclonal antibodies recognized different regions on the DrBphP protein. Additionally, epitopes of 2B8 and 3H7 antibodies were discovered to be shorter than 10 amino acids (2B8: RDPLPFFPP, 3H7: PGEIEEA). These two antibodies with such specific recognition epitopes could be especially valuable for developing new peptide tags for protein detection and purification.

Bacteriophytochromes are composed of N-terminal region for chromophore binding and C-terminal domain for transmission of a light signal. In this study, the possibility of using the chromophore-binding domain from a Deinococcus radiodurans bacteriophytochrome as a protein tag to enable a rapid and simple detection method for the production of recombinant proteins were evaluated.

The ankyrin domain is one of the most common protein motifs in eukaryotic proteins. Repeated ankyrin domains are ubiquitous and their mediation of protein-protein interactions is involved in a number of physiological and developmental responses such as the cell cycle, signal transduction and cell differentiation. A novel putative phytochrome-interacting ankyrin repeat protein 2 (PIA2) containing three repeated ankyrin domains was identified in Arabidopsis. An in vitro pull-down and phosphorylation assay revealed that PIA2 is phosphorylated and interacts directly with oat phytochrome A. The N-terminal domain of PIA2 was specifically phosphorylated, whereas interactions between the domains of PIA2 and phytochrome A had no Pr/Pfr preference. PIA2 was ubiquitously expressed in most tissues and was localized in both the nucleus and the cytoplasm independent of treatment with light of specific wavelengths. Anthocyanin accumulation in seedlings grown under far-red light, a typical phenotype of wild-type plants, was reduced in a loss-of-function mutant of PIA2 (pia2), whereas anthocyanin accumulation was increased in an overexpressing plant (PIA2-OX). The gene expression of UDP-flavonoid-3'-glucosyl-transferase (UF3GT), a major enzyme in the anthocyanin biosynthesis processes, was decreased in pia2 knockout plants suggesting that decreased anthocyanin was because of the decreased expression of UF3GT. Our results suggest that PIA2 plays a role in the anthocyanin biosynthesis during seedling development as a novel phytochrome-interacting protein.

To analyze the surface properties of bacteriophytochrome (BphP), five (2B8, 2C11, 3B2, 3D2, 3H7) anti-BphP monoclonal antibodies were produced by using full-length of BphP of Deinococcus radiodurnas. 2B8 and 2C11 preferentially recognized the epitopes at N-terminal region of BphP, whereas 3B2, 3D2 and 3H7 showed preferential affinities to the epitopes of C-terminal region of BphP.

Rho-related GTPase of plants (ROP) plays an important role in plant growth and development as a signaling protein. Plant RopGEFs are recently identified ROP activator proteins in Arabidopsis. In this study, we cloned 14 RopGEFs in Arabidopsis and characterized their expression patterns in response to abiotic stresses. Fourteen RopGEF genes were categorized into three groups based on their amino acid homologies and molecular sizes. Most RopGEFs were expressed predominantly in flower but some RopGEFs displayed a tissue-specific expression pattern. RopGEF1, 4, 5, and 11 were expressed in all tissues including root and leaves whereas RopGEF7, 8, 9, and 13 were expressed only in flowers. The transcript levels of 14 RopGEFs were changed significantly depending upon abiotic stresses such as cold, heat, drought and salts. RopGEF5 transcription was up-regulated by salt and drought treatment but down-regulated by heat. RopGEF14 transcript level was also increased by salt but decreased by heat stress. The transcript levels of RopGEF1, 7, 9, and 12 were enhanced in response to heat stress but showed no changes in response to cold stresses. Drought stress activated Group 3 RopGEFs such as RopGEF5 and 7. Taken together, 14 RopGEFs are responding to the abiotic stresses individually or as a group.

Bacteriophytochromes are phytochrome-like light-sensing photoreceptors that use biliverdin as a chromophore. To study the biochemical properties of the Deinococcus radiodurans bacteriophytochrome (DrBphP) protein, two anti-DrBphP mouse monoclonal antibodies (2B8 and 3H7) were generated. Their specific epitopes were identified in our previous report. We present here fine epitope mapping of these two antibodies by using truncation and substitution of original epitope sequences in order to identify minimized epitope peptides. The previously reported original epitope sequences for 2B8 and 3H7 were truncated from both sides. Our analysis showed that the minimal peptide sequence lengths for 2B8 and 3H7 antibodies were nine amino acids (RDPLPFFPP) and six amino acids (PGEIEE), respectively. We further characterized these peptides in order to investigate their reactivity after single deletion and single substitution of the original peptides. We found that single-substituted 2B8 epitope (RDPLPAFPP) and dual-substituted 3H7 epitope (PGEIAD) showed significantly increased reactivity. These two antibodies with high reactivity for the short modified peptide sequences are valueble for developing new peptide tags for protein research.

A series of hybrid molecules consisting of benzophenones and N-cyclopropyl-3-methylbenzamides were synthesized and biologically evaluated as novel p38 mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) inhibitors. In particular, we found that compound 10g displayed potent p38α MAPK inhibitory activity (IC50=0.027 μM), high kinase selectivity, and significant anti-inflammatory activity in THP-1 monocyte cells.

S-Adenosylmethionine decarboxylase (SAMDC) is a key enzyme for the biosynthesis of spermidine. SAMDC-suppressed HL-60 cells overproduced intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), which led to cell growth defect and partial cell death. ROS overproduction was caused by a decrease of the total glutathione (GSH) and the ratio of reduced to oxidized GSH, and by an increase of the intracellular iron uptake. When analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction, the transcripts of the genes involved in the GSH synthesis (gamma-glutamyl cysteine synthetase, GSH synthetase), as well as the gene of the GSH-reducing enzyme (NADP+-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase), were decreased dramatically in these cells. DNA-repairing genes (ATM, PARP, RAD51 and MSH2) also were not activated transcriptionally. In these situations, excessive ROS induced severe DNA damage, which could not be repaired, and ultimately led the cells to a spontaneous cell death or an early senescence state. For such cells, gamma-radiation and cisplatin, which are direct DNA-damaging agents, were very effective for promoting cell death.

In previous studies, polyamine depletion by DFMO (alpha-difluoromethylornithine)-treatment reduced H(2)O(2)-induced apoptotic cell death by reduction of ferric ion uptake. In the present study, we analyzed the reduction of radiation-induced cell death by polyamine depletion. Exposure of HT29 cells to radiation induced severe cell death, but when cells were pretreated with DFMO, a specific inhibitor of polyamine biosynthesis, radiation-induced cell death was reduced to 50-60% of control. Cell cycle analysis showed that, in these cells, the time to reach the G(2)/M phase arrest was delayed for 20-24 h compared to the control cells, at which stage the fate of cells exposed to ionizing radiation is determined. DFMO-treated cells also showed a low level of thioredoxin, which is a high-level determinant of the cellular fate. To investigate the relationship between the G(2)/M phase arrest and the reduction of thioredoxin caused by polyamine depletion, we also analyzed thioredoxin-antisensed (asTRX) HT29 cells as for DFMO-treated cells. In asTRX-transfected cells, the gamma-irradiation-induced G(2)/M phase arrest was also significantly delayed and radiation-induced cell death was profoundly reduced, as in the DFMO-treated cells. Both sets of cells showed a decrease of cyclin D1 and an increment of HSP25, which are involved in radiation-induced cell cycle progress. Overall, these results suggest that polyamines are essential for normal cell death of HT29 cells triggered by gamma-radiation and that this is partially mediated by the regulation of thioredoxin expression.

Phytochromes enable plants to sense light information and regulate developmental responses. Phytochromes interact with partner proteins to transmit light signals to downstream components for plant development. PIRF1 (phytochrome-interacting ROP guanine-nucleotide exchange factor (RopGEF 1)) functions as a light-signaling switch regulating root development through the activation of ROPs (Rho-like GTPase of plant) in the cytoplasm. In vitro pulldown and yeast two-hybrid assays confirmed the interaction between PIRF1 and phytochromes. PIRF1 interacted with the N-terminal domain of phytochromes through its conserved PRONE (plant-specific ROP nucleotide exchanger) region. PIRF1 also interacted with ROPs and activated them in a phytochrome-dependent manner. The Pr form of phytochrome A enhanced the RopGEF activity of PIRF1, whereas the Pfr form inhibited it. A bimolecular fluorescence complementation analysis demonstrated that PIRF1 was localized in the cytoplasm and bound to the phytochromes in darkness but not in light. PIRF1 loss of function mutants (pirf1) of Arabidopsis thaliana showed a longer root phenotype in the dark. In addition, both PIRF1 overexpression mutants (PIRF1-OX) and phytochrome-null mutants (phyA-211 and phyB-9) showed retarded root elongation and irregular root hair formation, suggesting that PIRF1 is a negative regulator of phytochrome-mediated primary root development. We propose that phytochrome and ROP signaling are interconnected through PIRF1 in regulating the root growth and development in Arabidopsis.

The mammalian antizyme (AZ) promotes ubiqutin-independent degradation of ornithine decarboxylase, a key enzyme in polyamine biosynthesis. This study shows that AZ suppression in human lung carcinoma A549 cells caused growth defects and death, but made the cells resistant to DNA damaging agents such as γ-radiation and cisplatin. In these cells, the cellular redox potential (glutathione/glutathione disulfide [GSH/GSSG] ratio) was increased and thus intracellular reactive oxygen species were severely diminished, which might cause growth defects and cell death. The increase of cellular redox potential was mainly caused by dramatic increase of the cytoplasmic nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP)+-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase, which generates the reducing equivalents NADPH. In the AZ-suppressed cells, the hypoxia inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) was also increased. As in other cases which showed an increment of HIF-1α and the cellular redox potential, the AZ-suppressed cells showed resistance to γ-radiation and anticancer drugs. Therefore, these facts might be considered as important for the use of radio- and chemotherapy on tumor cells which show an unbalance in their polyamine levels. © 2008 IUBMB IUBMB Life, 60(6): 402–409, 2008