Steam-girdling of barley (Hordeum vulgare) leaves leads to carbohydrate accumulation and accelerated leaf senescence, facilitating transcriptomic analysis of senescence-associated genes.
Leaf senescence can be described as the dismantling of cellular components during a specific time interval before cell death. This has the effect of remobilizing N in the form of amino acids that can be relocalized to developing seeds. High levels of carbohydrates have previously been shown to promote the onset of the senescence process. Carbohydrate accumulation in barley (Hordeum vulgare) plants was induced experimentally by steam-girdling at the leaf base, occluding the phloem, and gene regulation under these conditions was investigated using the Affymetrix Barley GeneChip array and quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Transcript levels of plastidial (aminopeptidases, cnd41) and vacuolar (thiol and serine) proteases clearly increase in girdled leaves. Of special interest are cnd41, a plastidial aspartyl peptidase that has been implicated in Rubisco degradation in tobacco; and cp-mIII, a highly upregulated carboxypeptidase. SAG12, hexokinases and other senescence-specific genes are also upregulated under these conditions. Applying a genomic approach to the innovative experimental system described here significantly enhances our knowledge of leaf proteolysis and whole-plant N recycling.
Parrott
David L
DL
Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology.
McInnerney
Kate
K
Functional Genomics Core Facility, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA.
Feller
Urs
U
Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, CH-3013 Bern, Switzerland.
Fischer
Andreas M
AM
Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology.
D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D001467:Hordeum / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D018087:Plastids / Q000201:enzymology; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012273:Ribulose-Bisphosphate Carboxylase / Q000378:metabolism; D014617:Vacuoles / Q000201:enzymology