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The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress

Exposure of plants to abiotic stresses, such as salinity, cold, heat, or drought, affects their growth and development, and can significantly reduce their productivity. Plants have developed adaptive strategies to deal with situations of abiotic stresses with guarantees of success, which have favour...

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Autores principales: Robles, Pedro, Navarro-Cartagena, Sergio, Ferrández-Ayela, Almudena, Núñez-Delegido, Eva, Quesada, Víctor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
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Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30110886
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms19082388
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author Robles, Pedro
Navarro-Cartagena, Sergio
Ferrández-Ayela, Almudena
Núñez-Delegido, Eva
Quesada, Víctor
author_facet Robles, Pedro
Navarro-Cartagena, Sergio
Ferrández-Ayela, Almudena
Núñez-Delegido, Eva
Quesada, Víctor
author_sort Robles, Pedro
collection PubMed
description Exposure of plants to abiotic stresses, such as salinity, cold, heat, or drought, affects their growth and development, and can significantly reduce their productivity. Plants have developed adaptive strategies to deal with situations of abiotic stresses with guarantees of success, which have favoured the expansion and functional diversification of different gene families. The family of mitochondrial transcription termination factors (mTERFs), first identified in animals and more recently in plants, is likely a good example of this. In plants, mTERFs are located in chloroplasts and/or mitochondria, participate in the control of organellar gene expression (OGE), and, compared with animals, the mTERF family is expanded. Furthermore, the mutations in some of the hitherto characterised plant mTERFs result in altered responses to salt, high light, heat, or osmotic stress, which suggests a role for these genes in plant adaptation and tolerance to adverse environmental conditions. In this work, we investigated the effect of impaired mTERF6 function on the tolerance of Arabidopsis to salt, osmotic and moderate heat stresses, and on the response to the abscisic acid (ABA) hormone, required for plants to adapt to abiotic stresses. We found that the strong loss-of-function mterf6-2 and mterf6-5 mutants, mainly the former, were hypersensitive to NaCl, mannitol, and ABA during germination and seedling establishment. Additionally, mterf6-5 exhibited a higher sensitivity to moderate heat stress and a lower response to NaCl and ABA later in development. Our computational analysis revealed considerable changes in the mTERF6 transcript levels in plants exposed to different abiotic stresses. Together, our results pinpoint a function for Arabidopsis mTERF6 in the tolerance to adverse environmental conditions, and highlight the importance of plant mTERFs, and hence of OGE homeostasis, for proper acclimation to abiotic stress.
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spelling pubmed-61215702018-09-07 The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress Robles, Pedro Navarro-Cartagena, Sergio Ferrández-Ayela, Almudena Núñez-Delegido, Eva Quesada, Víctor Int J Mol Sci Communication Exposure of plants to abiotic stresses, such as salinity, cold, heat, or drought, affects their growth and development, and can significantly reduce their productivity. Plants have developed adaptive strategies to deal with situations of abiotic stresses with guarantees of success, which have favoured the expansion and functional diversification of different gene families. The family of mitochondrial transcription termination factors (mTERFs), first identified in animals and more recently in plants, is likely a good example of this. In plants, mTERFs are located in chloroplasts and/or mitochondria, participate in the control of organellar gene expression (OGE), and, compared with animals, the mTERF family is expanded. Furthermore, the mutations in some of the hitherto characterised plant mTERFs result in altered responses to salt, high light, heat, or osmotic stress, which suggests a role for these genes in plant adaptation and tolerance to adverse environmental conditions. In this work, we investigated the effect of impaired mTERF6 function on the tolerance of Arabidopsis to salt, osmotic and moderate heat stresses, and on the response to the abscisic acid (ABA) hormone, required for plants to adapt to abiotic stresses. We found that the strong loss-of-function mterf6-2 and mterf6-5 mutants, mainly the former, were hypersensitive to NaCl, mannitol, and ABA during germination and seedling establishment. Additionally, mterf6-5 exhibited a higher sensitivity to moderate heat stress and a lower response to NaCl and ABA later in development. Our computational analysis revealed considerable changes in the mTERF6 transcript levels in plants exposed to different abiotic stresses. Together, our results pinpoint a function for Arabidopsis mTERF6 in the tolerance to adverse environmental conditions, and highlight the importance of plant mTERFs, and hence of OGE homeostasis, for proper acclimation to abiotic stress. MDPI 2018-08-14 /pmc/articles/PMC6121570/ /pubmed/30110886 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms19082388 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Robles, Pedro
Navarro-Cartagena, Sergio
Ferrández-Ayela, Almudena
Núñez-Delegido, Eva
Quesada, Víctor
The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress
title The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress
title_full The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress
title_fullStr The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress
title_full_unstemmed The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress
title_short The Characterization of Arabidopsis mterf6 Mutants Reveals a New Role for mTERF6 in Tolerance to Abiotic Stress
title_sort characterization of arabidopsis mterf6 mutants reveals a new role for mterf6 in tolerance to abiotic stress
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30110886
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms19082388
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