Project description:Extreme hypobaria is a novel abiotic stress that is outside the evolutionary experience of terrestrial plants. In natural environments, the practical limit of atmospheric pressure experienced by higher plants is about 50 kPa or ~.5 atmospheres; a limit that is primarily imposed by the combined stresses inherent to high altitude conditions of terrestrial mountains. However, in highly controlled chambers and within extra-terrestrial greenhouses the atmospheric pressure component can be isolated from other high altitude stresses such as temperature, desiccation, and even hypoxia. In addition, hypobaria can be carried to extremes beyond what is possible in terrestrial biomes, and explored as a single variable in the examination of plant responses to novel stress. Previous studies have shown that plants adjust to hypobaric stress by differentially expressing suites of genes in unique combinations that are not equal to the dissected components of hypobaric stress (such as hypoxia and desiccation). Here we examine the organ-specific progression of transcriptional strategies for physiological adaptation to hypobaric stress over time. An abrupt transition from a near-sea level pressure of 97 kPa to only 5 kPa is accompanied by the differential expression of hundreds of genes. However, the transcriptomic reaction to hypobaric conditions lying between these two extremes reveals complex, organ-specific responses that vary over a time course of hypobaric exposure, and that are also not linear with respect to a simple gradient of severity. It is also clear that plants adjust over time such that the gene expression patterns that are initially elicited to cope with hypobaria are mediated as plants adjust their metabolism to this environment. The patterns of genome-wide changes in gene expression across a gradient of atmospheric pressures, and over a time course of several days allows for the development of theories of how plant metabolisms may be adapting to changes in atmospheric pressures.
Project description:Extreme hypobaria is a novel abiotic stress that is outside the evolutionary experience of terrestrial plants. In natural environments, the practical limit of atmospheric pressure experienced by higher plants is about 50 kPa or ~.5 atmospheres; a limit that is primarily imposed by the combined stresses inherent to high altitude conditions of terrestrial mountains. However, in highly controlled chambers and within extra-terrestrial greenhouses the atmospheric pressure component can be isolated from other high altitude stresses such as temperature, desiccation, and even hypoxia. In addition, hypobaria can be carried to extremes beyond what is possible in terrestrial biomes, and explored as a single variable in the examination of plant responses to novel stress. Previous studies have shown that plants adjust to hypobaric stress by differentially expressing suites of genes in unique combinations that are not equal to the dissected components of hypobaric stress (such as hypoxia and desiccation). Here we examine the organ-specific progression of transcriptional strategies for physiological adaptation to hypobaric stress over time. An abrupt transition from a near-sea level pressure of 97 kPa to only 5 kPa is accompanied by the differential expression of hundreds of genes. However, the transcriptomic reaction to hypobaric conditions lying between these two extremes reveals complex, organ-specific responses that vary over a time course of hypobaric exposure, and that are also not linear with respect to a simple gradient of severity. It is also clear that plants adjust over time such that the gene expression patterns that are initially elicited to cope with hypobaria are mediated as plants adjust their metabolism to this environment. The patterns of genome-wide changes in gene expression across a gradient of atmospheric pressures, and over a time course of several days allows for the development of theories of how plant metabolisms may be adapting to changes in atmospheric pressures.
Project description:Controlled hypobaria presents biology with an environment that is never encountered in terrestrial ecology, yet the apparent components of hypobaria are stresses typical of terrestrial ecosystems. High altitude, for example, presents terrestrial hypobaria always with hypoxia as a component stress, since the relative partial pressure of O2 is constant in the atmosphere. Laboratory-controlled hypobaria, however, allows the dissection of pressure effects away from the effects typically associated with altitude, in particular hypoxia, as the partial pressure of O2 can be varied. In this study, whole transcriptomes of plants grown in ambient (97 kPa/pO2 = 21 kPa) atmospheric conditions were compared to those of plants transferred to five different atmospheres of varying pressure and oxygen composition for 24 h: 50 kPa/pO2 = 10 kPa, 25 kPa/pO2 = 5 kPa, 50 kPa/pO2 = 21 kPa, 25 kPa/pO2 = 21 kPa, or 97 kPa/pO2 = 5 kPa. The plants exposed to these environments were 10 day old Arabidopsis seedlings grown vertically on hydrated nutrient plates. In addition, 5 day old plants were also exposed for 24 h to the 50 kPa and ambient environments to evaluate age-dependent responses. The gene expression profiles from roots and shoots showed that the hypobaric response contained more complex gene regulation than simple hypoxia, and that adding back oxygen to normoxic conditions did not completely alleviate gene expression changes in hypobaric responses.
Project description:Controlled hypobaria presents biology with an environment that is never encountered in terrestrial ecology, yet the apparent components of hypobaria are stresses typical of terrestrial ecosystems. High altitude, for example, presents terrestrial hypobaria always with hypoxia as a component stress, since the relative partial pressure of O2 is constant in the atmosphere. Laboratory-controlled hypobaria, however, allows the dissection of pressure effects away from the effects typically associated with altitude, in particular hypoxia, as the partial pressure of O2 can be varied. In this study, whole transcriptomes of plants grown in ambient (97 kPa/pO2 = 21 kPa) atmospheric conditions were compared to those of plants transferred to five different atmospheres of varying pressure and oxygen composition for 24 h: 50 kPa/pO2 = 10 kPa, 25 kPa/pO2 = 5 kPa, 50 kPa/pO2 = 21 kPa, 25 kPa/pO2 = 21 kPa, or 97 kPa/pO2 = 5 kPa. The plants exposed to these environments were 10 day old Arabidopsis seedlings grown vertically on hydrated nutrient plates. In addition, 5 day old plants were also exposed for 24 h to the 50 kPa and ambient environments to evaluate age-dependent responses. The gene expression profiles from roots and shoots showed that the hypobaric response contained more complex gene regulation than simple hypoxia, and that adding back oxygen to normoxic conditions did not completely alleviate gene expression changes in hypobaric responses.
Project description:Microbes of the root-associated microbiome contribute to improve resilience and fitness of plants. In this study, the interaction between the salt stress tolerance-inducing beneficial bacterium Enterobacter sp. SA187 and Arabidopsis was investigated with a special focus on the plant immune system. Among the immune signalling mutants, the Lys-motif receptors LYK4 strongly affected the beneficial interaction. Overexpression of the chitin receptor components LYK4 compromised the beneficial effect of SA187 on Arabidopsis. Transcriptome analysis revealed that the role of LYK4 in immunity is intertwined with a function in remodeling defense responses. Overall, our data indicate that components of the plant immune system are key elements in mediating beneficial metabolite-induced plant abiotic stress tolerance.
Project description:The goal of this work was to investigate oxidative stress responses of Arabidopsis to low red to far-red ratios of light as a signal of competition using a biological weedy and an artificial source of far-red light. More specifically, elucidation of the signaling role of singlet oxygen in Arabidopsis under low red-to far-red light environments was the major objective of this work. Oxidative stress responses of Arabidopsis to low red (R) to far-red (FR) signals (R:FR ≈ 0.3), generated by a biological weedy and an artificial source of FR light, were compared with a weed-free control (R:FR ≈1.4). In the low R:FR treatments, induction of the shade avoidance responses coincided with increased singlet oxygen (1O2) production and decreased level of superoxide and superoxide dismutase activity. Although the increase of 1O2 was not due to protochlorophyllide accumulation and did not result in cell death, treatments with the 1O2 generator 5-aminolevulinic acid increased sensitivity to cell death. Transcriptome responses minimally resembled those reported in four Arabidopsis 1O2 generating systems such that only few genes (6 out of 1931) were consistently up-regulated supporting the specificity of 1O2 signaling. Moreover, suppressors of jasmonate accumulation, including the 1O2-responsive amidohydrolase ILL6, the sulfotransferase ST2a, which are involved in prioritization of elongation growth versus defense were consistently up-regulated. Our data support a model in which photoreceptors connect low R:FR light cues to the JA signaling pathway. Repression of bioactive JAs via the amidohydrolase ILL6, and sulfotransferase ST2a may promote the shade avoidance (versus defense) and 1O2 acclimation (versus cell death) responses to competition cues.
Project description:Nontargeted and targeted metabolomics measurements of abiotic stress responses in three-week-old Arabidopsis thaliana plants' rosette leaf tissue for Col-0 wild type plants and double/triple knockout mutants of aquaporins (pip2;1 pip2;2 and pip2;1 pip2;2 pip2;4) treated with drought, heat at different air humidities, or combined drought-heat stress at different air humidities. This experiment contains FT-ICR-MS measurements for 103 Arabidopsis thaliana rosette leaf samples covering three genotypes under six different environmental conditions. The three genotypes comprise the Col-0 wildtype and two loss-of-function mutants of aquaporins, a pip2;1 pip2;2 double mutant and a pip2;1 pip2;2 pip2;4 triple mutant (respective AGI locus identifiers: AT3G53420, AT2G37170, AT5G60660). The six conditions include control condition (well-watered, 22 °C, 70% relative air humidity), drought stress (one week without watering), heat stress without changing the absolute humidity of the ambient air (6 hours at 33 °C, 37% relative air humidity), heat stress with supplemented air humidity to maintain a constant vapor pressure deficit before and during the heat episode (6 hours at 33 °C, 84% relative air humidity), and the combinations of drought pretreatment with each of the two heat stress variants (one week of drought followed by 6 hours of heat stress). Samples from all conditions were harvested at the same time (within 15 min starting at 5 pm). For validation, GC-TOF-MS measurements were done for two genotypes (wildtype, double mutant) and two conditions (drought, control) on partially overlapping samples.