Differential expression of the members of the Asr gene family in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum)

LAURA MASKIN; GUSTAVO E. GUDESBLAT; JAVIER E. MORENO; FERNANDO O. CARRARI; NICOLÁS FRANKEL; ADRIÁN SAMBADE; MAGDALENA ROSSI; NORBERTO D. IUSEM

PLANT SCIENCE

ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD

Año: 2001 vol. 161 p. 739 - 746

0168-9452

In this work, we continued to dissect the Asr (ABA/water stress/ripening-induced) gene family originally described in tomato.A RT-PCR-based strategy was developed to assess the organ (leaf, root and fruit) and developmental (immature and ripe fruit)specificity of expression of the three known members of the Asr gene family under normal and stress conditions. Our results allowus to conclude that whereas Asr1 and Asr2 are the members of the family preferentially induced by desiccation in leaves, Asr2is the only one activated in the roots from water-deficit-stressed plants. We also observed that expression of the three genes doesnot change significantly in fruit at different developmental stages, except for that of Asr2, which decreases after the breaker yellowstage. In addition, we identified a 72-amino acid polar peptide region, rich in His, Lys, Glu and Ala, which contains two internalimperfect repeats and is highly conserved in more recently discovered Asr-like proteins from other plant species exposed todifferent kinds of abiotic stress such as water deficit, salt, cold and/or limiting amount of light.