Usage of Metabolomics to elucidate the function of unknown proteins:

ZANOR, MI

Rosario

Simposio; LAMPS2016; 2016

Instituto De Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario-Metabolomics Society

Usage of Metabolomics to elucidate the function of unknown proteins: Despite recent intensive research efforts in functional genomics, the function of limited number of genes have been determined experimentally and improving gene annotation remains a major challenge in plant science. The measurement and interpretation of the endogenous metabolite profile provides opportunities to investigate changes induced by external stimuli or inherent to biological variation within populations. Metabolite profiling can characterize the metabolic phenotype of a genetic perturbation providing clues to the function of the genes of interest. We are currently trying to understand the function of an unknown function protein whose expression was reduced upon application of Methyl Viologen, an oxidative stress inducer herbicide. Arabidopsis thaliana over-expressing and mutant lines were studied in a multidisciplinary approach. These plants accumulated differentially metabolites related to stress such as proline, raffinose and galactinol. Interestingly, the intensity of damage of the spontaneous lesions developed by over-expressing lines seems to be photoperiod dependent. During the photoperiod, fine control of redox homeostasis is needed to prevent ROS overload due to excess light. Failure to maintain redox balance results in growth defects or initiation of cell death. Our working hypothesis is that the unknown protein could act in the regulation of ROS homeostasis.