A Three-Component Gene Expression System and Its Application for Inducible Flavonoid Overproduction in Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana

Inducible gene expression is a powerful tool to study and engineer genes whose overexpression could be detrimental for the host organisms. However, only limited systems have been adopted in plant biotechnology. We have developed an osmotically inducible system using three components of plant origin, RD29a (Responsive to Dehydration 29A) promoter, CBF3 (C-repeat Binding Factor 3) transcription factor and cpl1-2 (CTD phosphatase-like 1) mutation. The osmotic stress responsible RD29a promoter contains the CBF3 binding sites and thus RD29A-CBF3 feedforward cassette enhances induction of RD29a promoter under stress. The cpl1-2 mutation in a host repressor CPL1 promotes stress responsible RD29a promoter expression. The efficacy of this system was tested using PAP1 (Production of Anthocyanin Pigment 1) transgene, a model transcription factor that regulates the anthocyanin pathway in Arabidopsis. While transgenic plants with only one or two of three components did not reproducibly accumulate anthocyanin pigments above the control level, transgenic cpl1 plants containing homozygous RD29a-PAP1 and RD29a-CBF3 transgenes produced 30-fold higher level of total anthocyanins than control plants upon cold treatment. Growth retardation and phytochemical production of transgenic plants were minimum under normal conditions. The flavonoid profile in cold-induced transgenic plants was determined by LC/MS/MS, which resembled that of previously reported pap1-D plants but enriched for kaempferol derivatives. These results establish the functionality of the inducible three-component gene expression system in plant metabolic engineering. Furthermore, we show that PAP1 and environmental signals synergistically regulate the flavonoid pathway to produce a unique flavonoid blend that has not been produced by PAP1 overexpression or cold treatment alone

Analysis of high-identity segmental duplications in the grapevine genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Segmental duplications (SDs) are blocks of genomic sequence of 1-200 kb that map to different loci in a genome and share a sequence identity > 90%. SDs show at the sequence level the same characteristics as other regions of the human genome: they contain both high-copy repeats and gene sequences. SDs play an important role in genome plasticity by creating new genes and modeling genome structure. Although data is plentiful for mammals, not much was known about the representation of SDs in plant genomes. In this regard, we performed a genome-wide analysis of high-identity SDs on the sequenced grapevine (<it>Vitis vinifera</it>) genome (PN40024).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We demonstrate that recent SDs (> 94% identity and >= 10 kb in size) are a relevant component of the grapevine genome (85 Mb, 17% of the genome sequence). We detected mitochondrial and plastid DNA and genes (10% of gene annotation) in segmentally duplicated regions of the nuclear genome. In particular, the nine highest copy number genes have a copy in either or both organelle genomes. Further we showed that several duplicated genes take part in the biosynthesis of compounds involved in plant response to environmental stress.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data show the great influence of SDs and organelle DNA transfers in modeling the <it>Vitis vinifera </it>nuclear DNA structure as well as the impact of SDs in contributing to the adaptive capacity of grapevine and the nutritional content of grape products through genome variation. This study represents a step forward in the full characterization of duplicated genes important for grapevine cultural needs and human health.</p

The PI3K/Akt1 pathway enhances steady-state levels of FANCL

Fanconi anemia hematopoietic stem cells display poor self-renewal capacity when subjected to a variety of cellular stress. This phenotype raises the question of whether the Fanconi anemia proteins are stabilized or recruited as part of a stress response and protect against stem cell loss. Here we provide evidence that FANCL, the E3 ubiquitin ligase of the Fanconi anemia pathway, is constitutively targeted for degradation by the proteasome. We confirm biochemically that FANCL is polyubiquitinated with Lys-48-linked chains. Evaluation of a series of N-terminal-deletion mutants showed that FANCL's E2-like fold may direct ubiquitination. In addition, our studies showed that FANCL is stabilized in a complex with axin1 when glycogen synthase kinase-3β is overexpressed. This result leads us to investigate the potential regulation of FANCL by upstream signaling pathways known to regulate glycogen synthase kinase-3β. We report that constitutively active, myristoylated-Akt increases FANCL protein level by reducing polyubiquitination of FANCL. Two-dimensional PAGE analysis shows that acidic forms of FANCL, some of which are phospho-FANCL, are not subject to polyubiquitination. These results indicate that a signal transduction pathway involved in self-renewal and survival of hematopoietic stem cells also functions to stabilize FANCL and suggests that FANCL participates directly in support of stem cell function