Post-transcriptional regulation in response to water deficit: the role of 3-UTR.

BATTAGLIA M. AND COVARRUBIAS AA.

Seattle, Washington, USA

Congreso; ASPB (American Society of Plant Biology) (2005) Plant Biology 2005; 2005

ASPB (American Society of Plant Biology)

The Pvlea18 is a hydrophilin, member of a new family of Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) proteins (Group 6) from Phaseolus vulgaris. mRNA and protein accumulate in seeds and in dark grown bean seedlings not only in response to water deficit and ABA treatments but also in hipocotyls growth regions during optimal irrigation conditions (1). Analysis of GUS expression patterns from transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants containing the Pvlea18 promoter fused to GUS gene and to 3-nos UTR or, alternatively, fused to Pvlea-18 3-region showed that the Pvlea-18 3-UTR is responsible of most of the GUS expression induced by water deficit treatments. Also, it was shown that the transcript accumulation in response to dehydration dependant of the 3-UTR is independent of ABA (2 and this work). In this work, we will present evidence, which shows that the Pvlea18 gene is post-transcriptionally regulated through its 3-UTR in response to water deficit. Our data suggest that Pvlea18 mRNA is specifically stabilized under water scarcity conditions. In silico analysis of the Pvlea-18 3-UTR region revealed conserved sequences between orthologous genes. We will present data, which indicate that a region containing these sequences is able to bind a particular protein. 1. Colmenero-Flores JM, Campos F, Garciarrubio A, Covarrubias AA. (1997). Characterization of Phaseolus vulgaris cDNA clones responsive to water deficit: identification of a novel late embryogenesis abundant-like protein. Plant Mol Biol. 35: 393 2. Moreno-Fonseca LP, Covarrubias AA. (2001) Downstream DNA sequences are required to modulate Pvlea-18 gene expression in response to dehydration. Plant Mol.Biol. 45:501, 2001