Authors: Pedro Humberto Castro Daniel Couto Sara Freitas Nuno Verde Alberto P Macho Stéphanie Huguet Miguel Angel Botella Javier RuizAlbert Rui Manuel Tavares Eduardo Rodríguez Bejarano Herlânder Azevedo
Publish Date: 2016/06/21
Volume: 92, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 143-159
Abstract
Sumoylation is an essential posttranslational regulator of plant development and the response to environmental stimuli SUMO conjugation occurs via an E1E2E3 cascade and can be removed by SUMO proteases ULPs ULPs are numerous and likely to function as sources of specificity within the pathway yet most ULPs remain functionally unresolved In this report we used lossoffunction reverse genetics and transcriptomics to functionally characterize Arabidopsis thaliana ULP1c and ULP1d SUMO proteases GUS reporter assays implicated ULP1c/d in various developmental stages and subsequent defects in growth and germination were uncovered using lossoffunction mutants Microarray analysis evidenced not only a deregulation of genes involved in development but also in genes controlled by various droughtassociated transcriptional regulators We demonstrated that ulp1c ulp1d displayed diminished in vitro root growth under low water potential and higher stomatal aperture yet leaf transpirational water loss and whole drought tolerance were not significantly altered Generation of a triple siz1 ulp1c ulp1d mutant suggests that ULP1c/d and the SUMO E3 ligase SIZ1 may display separate functions in development yet operate epistatically in response to water deficit We provide experimental evidence that Arabidopsis ULP1c and ULP1d proteases act redundantly as positive regulators of growth and operate mainly as isopeptidases downstream of SIZ1 in the control of water deficit responsesThis work was supported by FEDER through the Operational Competitiveness Program—COMPETE—and by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology—FCT—within the scope of project “SUMOdulator” Refs FCOMP010124FEDER028459 and PTDC/BIAPLA/3850/2012 PHC was supported by FCT grant ref SFRH/BD/44484/2008 and PTDC/BIAPLA/3850/2012 HA was supported by the “Genomics and Evolutionary Biology” project cofinanced by North Portugal Regional Operational Programme 2007/2013 ON2—O Novo Norte under the National Strategic Reference Framework NSRF through the European Regional Development Fund ERDF and by FEDER COMPETE and FCT for Rede de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Biologia Evolutiva UID/BIA/50027/2013 and POCI010145FEDER006821PHC and DC performed most of the experiments SF NV and APM performed or helped perform specific experiments SH performed microarray experimentation HA ERB RMT J RA and MAB supervised the experiments HA PHC and DC conceived the project and analyzed the data HA and PHC wrote the article with contributions from all the authors
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