Project description:This study compared the photosynthetic performance and the global gene expression of the winter hardy wheat Triticum aestivum cv Norstar grown under non-acclimated (NA) or cold-acclimated (CA) condition at either ambient CO2 or elevated CO2 (EC). CA Norstar maintained comparable light saturated and CO2 saturated rates of photosynthesis but lower quantum requirements for photosystem II and non photochemical quenching relative to NA plants even at EC. Neither NA nor CA plants were sensitive to feedback inhibition of photosynthesis at EC. Global gene expression using microarray combined with bioinformatics analysis revealed that genes affected by EC were 3 times higher in NA (1022 genes) compared to CA (372 genes) Norstar. The most striking effect was the down-regulation of genes involved in the plant defense responses in NA Norstar. In contrast, cold acclimation reversed this down regulation due to the cold induction of genes involved in plant pathogenesis resistance, and cellular and chloroplast protection. These results suggest that EC have less impact on plant performance and productivity in cold adapted winter hardy plants in the northern climates compared to warmer environments. Selection for cereal cultivars with constitutively higher expression of biotic stress defense genes may be necessary under EC during the warm growth period and in warmer climates. Twelve replicate pots with 3 plants per pot were grown at either NA or CA conditions at either ambient or EC. To minimize any possible chamber effects, the 12 replicate pots at each growth condition were distributed between two growth chambers. A total of 3 biological replicates for each condition were used for microarray analyses. Each biological replicate sample was obtained by pooling three whole fully expanded 3rd leaves from different plants harvested randomly. The different biological samples of Norstar winter wheat leaves were ground in dry ice to fine powder and total RNA was extracted with trizol (Invitrogen, Burlington, ON, CA). Total RNA was cleaned using RNeasy plant mini kit (Qiagen) and integrity was determined on agarose gel and on a bioanalyser (Agilent 2100). Synthesized cDNAs were transcribed to cRNAs with the 3M-bM-^@M-^YIVT labelling kit (Santa Clara, CA, USA) and hybridized to the Affymetrix wheat genome array (Santa Clara, Ca, USA) at the McGill University and GM-CM-)nome QuM-CM-)bec Innovation Centre (Montreal, Qc, CA). The experimental design consisted of three biological replicates for each of the four growth conditions, 1: Non-acclimated (NA) at ambient CO2 (AC) (NAAC); 2: Cold-acclimated (CA) at ambient CO2 (AC) (CAAC); 3: Non-acclimated (NA) at elevated CO2 (EC) (NAEC); 4: Cold-acclimated (CA) at elevated CO2 (EC) (CAEC). Thus, a total of 3 biological samples from each of the 4 growth conditions described above were used for hybridizations.

Project description:Intertidal zone organisms can experience transient freezing temperatures during winter low tides, but their extreme cold tolerance mechanisms are not known. Petrolisthes cinctipes is a temperate mid-high intertidal zone crab species that can experience wintertime habitat temperatures below the freezing point of seawater. We examined how cold tolerance changed during the initial phase of thermal acclimation to cold and warm temperatures, as well as the persistence of cold tolerance during long-term thermal acclimation. Thermal acclimation for as little as 6 hours at 8˚C enhanced crab tolerance during a 1h exposure to -2°C relative to crabs acclimated to 18˚C. Potential mechanisms for this enhanced tolerance were elucidated using cDNA microarrays to probe for differences in gene expression in cardiac tissue of warm and cold acclimated crabs during the first day of thermal acclimation. No changes in gene expression were detected until 12h of thermal acclimation. Genes strongly upregulated in warm acclimated crabs represented immune response and extracellular / intercellular processes, suggesting that warm acclimated crabs had a generalized stress response and may have been remodelling tissues or altering intercellular processes. Genes strongly upregulated in cold acclimated crabs included many that are involved in glucose production suggesting that cold acclimation involves increasing intracellular glucose as a cryoprotectant. Structural cytoskeletal proteins were also strongly represented among the genes upregulated in only cold acclimated crabs. There were no consistent changes in composition or the level of unsaturation of membrane phospholipid fatty acids with cold acclimation, which suggests that neither short- nor long-term changes in cold tolerance are mediated by changes in membrane fatty acid composition. Overall, our study demonstrates that initial changes in cold tolerance are likely not regulated by transcriptomic responses, but that gene expression-related changes in homeostasis begin within 12 hours – the length of a tidal cycle. all array data and raw images archived at the Porcelain Crab Array Database (http://array.sfsu.edu)

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Triticum aestivum

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