AtTraf: a novel RNA chaperone involved in temperatures stress responses in Arabidopsis

STROLOGO, LAURA; GISMODI, MAURO; GABILONDO, JULIETA; BUDDE, CLAUDIO OLAF; LARA, MARÍA VALERIA; DRINCOVICH, MARÍA FABIANA; BUSTAMANTE, CLAUDIA

Congreso; LII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2016

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB)

Once harvested, peaches are cold-storedin order to delayripening. However, refrigeration can produce chilling injury (CI) symptoms, affecting the quality of fruits. Among othersstrategies, heat treatment (HT) preceding cold storage resultedeffective in preventing CI symptoms. PpTRAF is a HT-andcold-inducedtranscript that encodes a TRAF-typeZn finger with aconfirmed RNA chaperone role in peach fruit. In this work, westudied AtTRAF: the A. thaliana uncharacterized PpTRAFprotein ortholog. Using an in vivo complementation test in E. coli RL211 strain, the RNA helicase activity of AtTRAF was confirmed. The promotor region of this gene was analyzed andseveral stress-relatedcis elements were found. To studyAtTRAF mRNA abundance, we measured its expression levelsby RT-qPCRin different organs and conditions. AtTRAF wasfound in several tissues, reaching the highest mRNA levels inflowers, and showed inductions after both low and hightemperatures. AtTRAF KO mutants and lines overexpressing thegene were obtained and analyzed regarding their ability togerminate and elongate the roots under cold and heat stresses, as well as in the presence of ABA, NaCl, H2O2 or mannitol.Several growth differences were addressed in comparison to wild-typelines. Overall, these results suggest that AtTRAF couldhave a molecular role as RNA chaperone under cold and heatstress in A. thaliana.