TWO CLASS TAU GLUTATHIONE TRANSFERASES FROM STRAWBERRY LEAVES ARE DIFFERENTIALLY EXPRESSED IN RESPONSE TO BIOTIC AND ABIOTIC STRESSES

TONELLO, URSULA; CASTAGANARO, ATILIO P; DÍAZ RICCI, JUAN C.

Horco Molle, Tucumán

Jornada; 29º Annual Scientific Meeting; 2012

Tucumán Biology Associatioin

Plant Glutathione Transferases (GSTs) are multifunctional proteinsencoded by a large gene family involved in the response to bioticand abiotic stresses. They present a conserved N-terminal, GSHbinding domain, and a variable C-terminal domain for binding tohydrophobic substrates. Using DD-RT-PCR and RACE methodologywe identifi ed 17 members of class tau GSTs expressed in leaves ofstrawberry plants challenged with a combination of abiotic (darkness,high humidity and 28°C) and biotic (infection with isolate M23of Colletotrichum) stresses for 48 h. In this study we analyzed therelative expression of two transcripts, FaGSTU1 and FaGSTU17 indifferent stress treatments, using semiquantitative RT-PCR. The levelof FaGSTU1 compared to the control was higher in plants infectedwith M23, and was repressed when the infection was carried out withthe isolate M11 of Colletotrichum that causes anthracnose. Afterthe treatments no signifi cant differences in FaGSTU17 level wereobserved. These fi ndings suggest that FaGSTU1 and FaGSTU17,which encode proteins that share 33% of primary sequence identityin the C-terminal domain, are components of different pathwaysassociated with stress response in strawberry.76.IDENTIFICATION AND PHYTOTOXIC ACTIVITY