Phosphorylation Modification of Wheat Lectin VER2 Is Associated with Vernalization-Induced O-GlcNAc Signaling and Intracellular Motility

BACKGROUND: O-linked beta-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) modification of proteins mediates stress response and cellular motility in animal cells. The plant lectin concanavalin A can increase nuclear O-GlcNAc levels and decrease cytoplasmic O-GlcNAc levels in T lymphocytes. However, the functions of O-GlcNAc signaling in plants, as well as the relation between plant lectins and O-GlcNAc in response to environmental stimuli are largely undefined. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We describe a jacalin-like lectin VER2 in wheat that shows N-acetylglucosamine and galactose specificity. Immunocytochemical localization showed VER2 expression induced predominantly at potential nuclear structures in shoot tips and young leaves and weakly in cytoplasm in response to vernalization. In contrast, under devernalization (continuous stimulation with a higher temperature after vernalization), VER2 signals appeared predominantly in cytoplasm. 2-D electrophoresis, together with western blot analysis, showed phosphorylation modification of VER2 under vernalization. Immunoblot assay with O-GlcNAc-specific antibody revealed that vernalization increased O-GlcNAc modification of proteins at the global level. An O-GlcNAc-modified protein co-immunoprecipitated with VER2 in vernalized wheat plants but not in devernalized materials. The dynamic of VER2 was observed in transgenic Arabidopsis overexpressing the VER2-GFP fusion protein. Overexpressed VER2 accelerated nuclear migration. Immunogold labeling and indirect immunofluoresence colocalization assay indicated that VER2-GFP was targeted to the secretory pathway. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: O-GlcNAc signaling is involved in the vernalization response in wheat, and phosphorylation is necessary for the lectin VER2 involving O-GlcNAc signaling during vernalization. Our findings open the way to studies of O-GlcNAc protein modification in response to environmental signals in plants

Reduced expression of a gene encoding a Golgi localized monosaccharide transporter (OsGMST1) confers hypersensitivity to salt in rice (Oryza sativa)

Sugar transport is critical for normal plant development and stress responses. However, functional evidence for the roles of monosaccharide transporters in rice (Oryza sativa) has not previously been presented. In this study, reversed genetics was used to identify OsGMST1 as a member of the monosaccharide transporter family in rice. The predicted 481 amino acid protein has the typical features of a sugar transporter in the plastid glucose transporter subfamily consistent with reduced monosaccharide accumulation in plants with reduced OsGMST1 expression. OsGMST1-green fluorescent protein is localized to the Golgi apparatus. OsGMST1 expression is induced by salt treatment and reduced expression confers hypersensitivity to salt stress in rice. OsGMST1 may play a direct or an indirect role in tolerance to salt stress in rice

OsLIC, a Novel CCCH-Type Zinc Finger Protein with Transcription Activation, Mediates Rice Architecture via Brassinosteroids Signaling

Rice architecture is an important agronomic trait and a major limiting factor for its high productivity. Here we describe a novel CCCH-type zinc finger gene, OsLIC (Oraza sativa leaf and tiller angle increased controller), which is involved in the regulation of rice plant architecture. OsLIC encoded an ancestral and unique CCCH type zinc finge protein. It has many orthologous in other organisms, ranging from yeast to humane. Suppression of endogenous OsLIC expression resulted in drastically increased leaf and tiller angles, shortened shoot height, and consequently reduced grain production in rice. OsLIC is predominantly expressed in rice collar and tiller bud. Genetic analysis suggested that OsLIC is epistatic to d2-1, whereas d61-1 is epistatic to OsLIC. Interestingly, sterols were significantly higher in level in transgenic shoots than in the wild type. Genome-wide expression analysis indicated that brassinosteroids (BRs) signal transduction was activated in transgenic lines. Moreover, transcription of OsLIC was induced by 24-epibrassinolide. OsLIC, with a single CCCH motif, displayed binding activity to double-stranded DNA and single-stranded polyrA, polyrU and polyrG but not polyrC. It contains a novel conserved EELR domain among eukaryotes and displays transcriptional activation activity in yeast. OsLIC may be a transcription activator to control rice plant architecture

Bone age assessment based on deep convolution neural network incorporated with segmentation

© 2020, CARS. Purpose: Bone age assessment is not only an important means of assessing maturity of adolescents, but also plays an indispensable role in the fields of orthodontics, kinematics, pediatrics, forensic science, etc. Most studies, however, do not take into account the impact of background noise on the results of the assessment. In order to obtain accurate bone age, this paper presents an automatic assessment method, for bone age based on deep convolutional neural networks. Method: Our method was divided into two phases. In the image segmentation stage, the segmentation network U-Net was used to acquire the mask image which was then compared with the original image to obtain the hand bone portion after removing the background interference. For the classification phase, in order to further improve the evaluation performance, an attention mechanism was added on the basis of Visual Geometry Group Network (VGGNet). Attention mechanisms can help the model invest more resources in important areas of the hand bone. Result: The assessment model was tested on the RSNA2017 Pediatric Bone Age dataset. The results show that our adjusted model outperforms the VGGNet. The mean absolute error can reach 9.997 months, which outperforms other common methods for bone age assessment. Conclusion: We explored the establishment of an automated bone age assessment method based on deep learning. This method can efficiently eliminate the influence of background interference on bone age evaluation, improve the accuracy of bone age evaluation, provide important reference value for bone age determination, and can aid in the prevention of adolescent growth and development diseases

The COG1-OsSERL2 complex senses cold to trigger signaling network for chilling tolerance in japonica rice

Abstract Improvement of chilling tolerance is a key strategy to face potential menace from abnormal temperature in rice production, which depends on the signaling network triggered by receptors. However, little is known about the QTL genes encoding membrane complexes for sensing cold. Here, C hilling-t o lerance in G engdao/japonica rice 1 (COG1) is isolated from a chromosome segment substitution line containing a QTL (qCS11-jap) for chilling sensitivity. The major gene COG1 is found to confer chilling tolerance in japonica rice. In natural rice populations, only the haplogroup1 encodes a functional COG1. Evolutionary analysis show that COG1 originates from Chinese O. Rufipogon and is fixed in japonica rice during domestication. COG1, a membrane-localized LRR-RLP, targets and activates the kinase OsSERL2 in a cold-induced manner, promoting chilling tolerance. Furthermore, the cold signal transmitted by COG1-OsSERL2 activates OsMAPK3 in the cytoplasm. Our findings reveal a cold-sensing complex, which mediates signaling network for the chilling defense in rice

Chilling tolerance in rice: Past and present

Rice is generally sensitive to chilling stress, which seriously affects growth and yield. Since early in the last century, considerable efforts have been made to understand the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the response to chilling stress and improve rice chilling tolerance. Here, we review the research trends and advances in this field. The phenotypic and biochemical changes caused by cold stress and the physiological explanations are briefly summarized. Using published data from the past 20 years, we reviewed the past progress and important techniques in the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL), novel genes, and cellular pathways involved in rice chilling tolerance. The advent of novel technologies has significantly advanced studies of cold tolerance, and the characterization of QTLs, key genes, and molecular modules have sped up molecular design breeding for cold tolerance in rice varieties. In addition to gene function studies based on overexpression or artificially generated mutants, elucidating natural allelic variation in specific backgrounds is emerging as a novel approach for the study of cold tolerance in rice, and the superior alleles identified using this approach can directly facilitate breeding