Functional characterization of tandem duplicated sHSPs genes in tomato, potato and Arabidopsis genomes.

TAPIA, ELIZABETH; ARCE, DÉBORA P; ARCE, DÉBORA P; CACCHIARELLI, P; PRATTA, GUILLERMO; CACCHIARELLI, P; PRATTA, GUILLERMO; TAPIA, ELIZABETH

Posadas

Congreso; VIII Argentinian Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Congress; 2017

Asociación Argentina de Bioinformática y Biología Computacional.

Small heat shock proteins (sHSPs, 12?40 kDa) have been associated with stress tolerance by preventing irreversible aggregation of misfolded proteins. Abiotic stress and developmental changes trigger sHSP gene expression and protein synthesis in Arabidopsis and Solanaceae plants, suggesting the existence of a complex chaperone-network to maintain cellular homeostasis.  Previous analysis of sHSP gene family in the tomato genome, S. lycopersicum cv. Heinz 1706, identified two tandem duplicated sHSP genes (Solyc09g015000 and Solyc09g015020) mapping together in chromosome 09 which are up-regulated during fruit ripening. Although Heat Shock Elements (HSEs) indeed appear in the promoters of most up-regulated sHSP genes during fruit ripening, some striking exceptions are observed. In particular, the uncharacterized sHSP gene Solyc09g015000,  strongly up-regulated during fruit ripening and heat shock, is completely depleted from HSEs.