Project description:We performed a transcriptomic analysis of Pi starvation responses in Arabidopsis thaliana (Columbia-0) wild type plants under phosphate starvation stress and in plants with altered PHR1(-like) activity, comparing mutants of phr1 and phr1-phl1 grown in phosphate-lacking medium. Results show the central role of PHR1 and functionally redundant members of its family in the control of transcriptional responses to Pi starvation.
Project description:chip in silencing suppressor plants or in mirna plants-Transcriptional and post-transcriptional changes in Arabidopsis plants that constitutively express suppressors of RNA silencing
Project description:Arabidopsis thaliana plants that have experienced an initial exposure to dehydration stress (“trained plants”) have an increased ability to maintain leaf relative water content (RWC) during subsequent stresses than plants experiencing the stress for the first time and transcription of selected dehydration response genes is altered during successive exposures to dehydration stress. This physiological and transcriptional behavior of trained plants is consistent with a “memory “of an earlier stress. It is unknown whether such memory is present in other Angiosperm lineages and whether it is an evolutionarily conserved response to stress. Here, we analyzed the behavior and transcriptomes of maize (Zea mays) plants experiencing multiple dehydration stresses and compare them with responses of the evolutionarily distant A. thaliana. We found structurally related genes in maize that displayed the same memory-type responses as in A. thaliana, providing evidence of the conservation of function and transcriptional memory in the evolution of plants’ dehydration stress response systems. Similar to A. thaliana, trained Z. mays plants retained higher RWC during dehydration stress than untrained plants, due in part to maintaining reduced stomatal conductance, despite full recovery of RWC, after the first stress. Divergent transcriptional memory responses were also expressed, suggesting diversification of function among stress memory genes. Some dehydration stress memory genes were also shared with other stress and hormone responding pathways, indicating complex and dynamic interactions between different plant signaling networks. The results provide new insight into how plants respond to multiple dehydration stresses and provide a platform for studies of the functions of memory genes in adaptive responses to water deficit in monocot and eudicot plants .
Project description:Plants need to be able to respond to changes quickly due to the inability of a plant to change location. Hormones within the plant signal for these transcriptional changes that will affect the plant's ability to survive. Strigolactone is a plant hormone that was more recently discovered so has a less detailed understanding of what genes it regulates, compared to other plant hormones. First published in Brewer et al 2016, PNAS We used microarrays to determine transcriptional responses in strigolactone mutants and in wild-type plants with various physiological treatment which affect hormone levels over 24 hours.
Project description:The plant signaling molecule auxin triggers both fast and slow cellular responses across the plant lineage, including both land plants and algae. We discovered an ultra-fast proteome-wide phosphorylation response to auxin across 5 land plant and algal species, converging on a core group of shared target proteins. We find conserved rapid physiological responses to auxin in the same species and identified a RAF-like protein kinase as a central mediator of auxin-triggered phosphorylation across species.