Plants exhibit considerable phenotypic plasticity, allowing them to adapt their metabolism to the fluctuating energy supply in a natural environment. Using dark-induced senescence (DIS) as an experimental system, a mutant study combining phenotypic, transcriptomic and chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing approaches identified distinct members of the Arabidopsis thaliana group S1 basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors that orchestrate the starvation response. Whereas excluding bZIP2, bZIP11, and bZIP44 to play a major role in DIS, bZIP1, and bZIP53 act partially redundantly to control a coexpression network governing amino acid catabolism and transport, gluconeogenesis and energy homeostasis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) are modular multidomain enzymes responsible for the biosynthesis of various secondary metabolites in an mRNA template-independent manner. They are predominantly present in bacteria and fungi, where they synthesize a variety of products, including antibiotics, siderophores, toxins, and signaling molecules. The human pathogen possesses one single NRPS, AusA, highly conserved in all sequenced strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly plant responses to different stress situations often encompass cytosolic Ca increases, plasma membrane depolarization and the generation of reactive oxygen species. However, the mechanisms by which these signalling elements are translated into defined physiological outcomes are poorly understood. Here, to study the basis for encoding of specificity in plant signal processing, we used light-gated ion channels (channelrhodopsins).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
February 2024
Plants tightly control growth of their lateral organs, which led to the concept of apical dominance. However, outgrowth of the dormant lateral primordia is sensitive to the plant's nutritional status, resulting in an immense plasticity in plant architecture. While the impact of hormonal regulation on apical dominance is well characterized, the prime importance of sugar signaling to unleash lateral organ formation has just recently emerged.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInterleukin-4 (IL-4) plays a key role in atopic diseases. It coordinates T-helper cell differentiation to subtype 2, thereby directing defense toward humoral immunity. Together with Interleukin-13, IL-4 further induces immunoglobulin class switch to IgE.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh-temperature stress limits plant growth and reproduction. Exposure to high temperature, however, also elicits a physiological response, which protects plants from the damage evoked by heat. This response involves a partial reconfiguration of the metabolome including the accumulation of the trisaccharide raffinose.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeat stress triggers the accumulation of triacylglycerols in Arabidopsis leaves, which increases basal thermotolerance. However, how triacylglycerol synthesis is linked to thermotolerance remains unclear and the mechanisms involved remain to be elucidated. It has been shown that triacylglycerol and starch degradation are required to provide energy for stomatal opening induced by blue light at dawn.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Insect Sci
January 2023
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/finsc.2022.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Venus flytrap Dionaea muscipula estimates prey nutrient content by counting trigger hair contacts initiating action potentials (APs) and calcium waves traveling all over the trap. A first AP is associated with a subcritical rise in cytosolic calcium concentration, but when the second AP arrives in time, calcium levels pass the threshold required for fast trap closure. Consequently, memory function and decision-making are timed via a calcium clock.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall bacterial regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) have been implicated in the regulation of numerous metabolic pathways. In most of these studies, sRNA-dependent regulation of mRNAs or proteins of enzymes in metabolic pathways has been predicted to affect the metabolism of these bacteria. However, only in a very few cases has the role in metabolism been demonstrated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Insect Sci
November 2022
The negative impact of juvenile undernourishment on adult behavior has been well reported for vertebrates, but relatively little is known about invertebrates. In honeybees, nutrition has long been known to affect task performance and timing of behavioral transitions. Whether and how a dietary restriction during larval development affects the task performance of adult honeybees is largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSalt stress is a major abiotic stress, responsible for declining agricultural productivity. Roots are regarded as hubs for salt detoxification, however, leaf salt concentrations may exceed those of roots. How mature leaves manage acute sodium chloride (NaCl) stress is mostly unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSphingolipid long-chain bases (LCBs) are building blocks for membrane-localized sphingolipids, and are involved in signal transduction pathways in plants. Elevated LCB levels are associated with the induction of programmed cell death and pathogen-derived toxin-induced cell death. Therefore, levels of free LCBs can determine survival of plant cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn vitro rearing of honeybee larvae is an established method that enables exact control and monitoring of developmental factors and allows controlled application of pesticides or pathogens. However, only a few studies have investigated how the rearing method itself affects the behavior of the resulting adult honeybees. We raised honeybees in vitro according to a standardized protocol: marking the emerging honeybees individually and inserting them into established colonies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe onset of plant life is characterized by a major phase transition. During early heterotrophic seedling establishment, seed storage reserves fuel metabolic demands, allowing the plant to switch to autotrophic metabolism. Although metabolic pathways leading to storage compound mobilization are well-described, the regulatory circuits remain largely unresolved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
September 2021
Plants adjust their energy metabolism to continuous environmental fluctuations, resulting in a tremendous plasticity in their architecture. The regulatory circuits involved, however, remain largely unresolved. In , moderate perturbations in photosynthetic activity, administered by short-term low light exposure or unexpected darkness, lead to increased lateral root (LR) initiation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Biol
September 2021
Animals need to balance competitive behaviors to maintain internal homeostasis. The underlying mechanisms are complex but typically involve neuroendocrine signaling. Using Drosophila, we systematically manipulated signaling between energy-mobilizing endocrine cells producing adipokinetic hormone (AKH), octopaminergic neurons, and the energy-storing fat body to assess whether this neuroendocrine axis involved in starvation-induced hyperactivity also balances activity levels under ad libitum access to food.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoil salinity is an increasingly global problem which hampers plant growth and crop yield. Plant productivity depends on optimal water-use efficiency and photosynthetic capacity balanced by stomatal conductance. Whether and how stomatal behavior contributes to salt sensitivity or tolerance is currently unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCarotenoid levels in plant tissues depend on the relative rates of synthesis and degradation of the molecules in the pathway. While plant carotenoid biosynthesis has been extensively characterized, research on carotenoid degradation and catabolism into apocarotenoids is a relatively novel field. To identify apocarotenoid metabolic processes, we characterized the transcriptome of transgenic Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) roots accumulating high levels of β-carotene and, consequently, β-apocarotenoids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile rhodopsin-based optogenetics has revolutionized neuroscience, poor expression of opsins and the absence of the essential cofactor all-trans-retinal has complicated the application of rhodopsins in plants. Here, we demonstrate retinal production in plants and improved rhodopsin targeting for green light manipulation of plant cells using the Guillardia theta light-gated anion channelrhodopsin GtACR1. Green light induces a massive increase in anion permeability and pronounced membrane potential changes when GtACR1 is expressed, enabling non-invasive manipulation of plant growth and leaf development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe plant hormone jasmonoyl-isoleucine (JA-Ile) is an important regulator of plant growth and defense in response to various biotic and abiotic stress cues. Under our experimental conditions, JA-Ile levels increased approximately seven-fold in NaCl-treated roots. Although these levels were around 1000-fold lower than in wounded leaves, genes of the JA-Ile signaling pathway were induced by a factor of 100 or more.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe authors wish to make the following correction to this paper [...
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMycotoxins in agriculturally used plants can cause intoxication in animals and can lead to severe financial losses for farmers. The endophytic fungus var. living symbiotically within the cool season grass species can produce vertebrate and invertebrate toxic alkaloids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn Brassicaceae, tissue damage triggers the mustard oil bomb i.e., activates the degradation of glucosinolates by myrosinases leading to a rapid accumulation of isothiocyanates at the site of damage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Nanomedicine
July 2020
Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause of hepatic diseases all over the world. This necessitates the need to discover novel anti-HCV drugs to overcome emerging drug resistance and liver complications.
Purpose: Total extract and petroleum ether fraction of the marine sponge ( spp.