In vivo expression analysis of stilbene synthase (STS) promoters activity from Vitis vinifera

CHIALVA, CS; MICCONO IRIBARREN, MA; PRIETO ENCALADA, H; LIJAVETZKY, D

Foz de Iguazu

Congreso; 11th Congress of International Plant Molecular Biology; 2015

IPMB; formerly International Society for Plant Molecular Biology, ISPMB

Stilbenes are a small family of phenylpropanoids synthesized by several species, including V. vinifera L. Stilbenes constitute a group of molecules which are derivatives of the trans-Resveratrol (t-R) structure (3,5,4′-trihydroxystilbene) and are produced by plants and cell cultures as a response to biotic and abiotic stresses. Besides its phytoalexin activity, t-R displays bioactivity that is relevant to human health. Stilbene synthases (STS), which catalyze stilbene backbone biosynthesis, have been cloned from grapevine. Its reference genome (PN40024, Jaillon et al., 2007) has revealed an unusually large and closely related STS genes family. Moreover, despite the high sequence similarity among those genes, several studies have observed clear differences between their expression patterns.In this study, focused on the STS gene transcriptional changes associated with ciclodextrins, methyl-jasmonate and the combination of the two aforementioned molecules (Lijavetzky et al., 2008), we investigated the effect of these elicitors in their promoter activities. Therefore, we adopted a convenient and efficient transient expression assay based on Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of in vitro plantlets leaves´ of V. vinifera cv Thompson seedless.The results showed that in vivo expression analysis of promoters and external stimuli can be evaluated by simple infiltration of agrobacteria carrying plasmid constructs into grapevine leaves. These findings further our understanding of the differential regulation of STS expression and confirm the elicitor effect of the molecules assessed. This novel method allows a qualitative characterization of the genes´ promoters activities induced by external agents.