Publications by authors named "Lucia Marri"

Abiotic environmental stresses have a negative impact on the yield and quality of crops. Understanding these stresses is an essential enabler for mitigating breeding strategies and it becomes more important as the frequency of extreme weather conditions increases due to climate change. This study analyses the response of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Modifications to the composition of starch, the major component of wheat flour, can have a profound effect on the nutritional and technological characteristics of the flour's end products. The starch synthesized in the grain of conventional wheats (Triticum aestivum) is a 3:1 mixture of the two polysaccharides amylopectin and amylose. Altering the activity of certain key starch synthesis enzymes (GBSSI, SSIIa and SBEIIa) has succeeded in generating starches containing a different polysaccharide ratio.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Here we describe the design of 1,2-phenylenediamine capturing molecule and the synthesis steps necessary for its preparation. The designed 1,2-phenylenediamine derivative is able to capture diacetyl in solution, as shown by ESIMS, forming a chemical adduct, 1-4-quinoxaline. The methyl esters of diacetyl-adduct (DAA) and pentanedione-adduct (PDA) are incorporated to the lysines in BSA and the conjugate used for antibody screening and selection.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Diacetyl (2,3-butanedione) is an important metabolic marker of several cancers, as well as an important off-flavour component produced during fermentation. As a small molecule in a complex mixture with many other analytes, existing methods for identification and quantitation of diacetyl invariably involves a chromatographic separation step followed by signal integration with an appropriate stoichiometric detector. Here we demonstrate that the chemical reaction of diacetyl with a 1,2-phenylenediamine derivative yields a chemical adduct, 1,4-quinoxaline which can be conjugated on BSA.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In rice, maize and barley, the lack of Isoamylase 1 activity materially affects the composition of endosperm starch. Here, the effect of this deficiency in durum wheat has been characterized, using transgenic lines in which Isa1 was knocked down via RNAi. Transcriptional profiling confirmed the partial down-regulation of Isa1 and revealed a pleiotropic effect on the level of transcription of genes encoding other isoamylases, pullulanase and sucrose synthase.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Twenty-four malt samples were assayed for limit dextrinase activity using a chromogenic assay developed recently in our group. The assay utilizes a small soluble chromogenic substrate which is hydrolyzed selectively by limit dextrinase in a coupled assay to release the chromophore 2-chloro-4-nitrophenol. The release of the chromophore, corresponding to the activity of limit dextrinase, can be followed by measuring the UV absorption at 405 nm.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Starch biosynthesis in Arabidopsis thaliana is strictly regulated. In leaf extracts, starch synthase 1 (AtSS1) responds to the redox potential within a physiologically relevant range. This study presents data testing two main hypotheses: 1) that specific thiol-disulfide exchange in AtSS1 influences its catalytic function 2) that each conserved Cys residue has an impact on AtSS1 catalysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and phosphoribulokinase (PRK) are two energy-consuming enzymes of the Calvin-Benson cycle, whose regulation is crucial for the global balance of the photosynthetic process under different environmental conditions. In oxygen phototrophs, GAPDH and PRK regulation involves the redox-sensitive protein CP12. In the dark, oxidized chloroplast thioredoxins trigger the formation of a GAPDH/CP12/PRK complex in which both enzyme activities are down-regulated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Starch, a polymer of glucose, is the major source of calories in the human diet. It has numerous industrial uses, including as a raw material for the production of first-generation bioethanol. Several classes of enzymes take part in starch biosynthesis, of which starch synthases (SSs) carry out chain elongation of both amylose and amylopectin.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Carbon assimilation in plants is regulated by the reduction of specific protein disulfides by light and their re-oxidation in the dark. The redox switch CP12 is an intrinsically disordered protein that can form two disulfide bridges. In the dark oxidized CP12 forms an inactive supramolecular complex with glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and phosphoribulokinase, two enzymes of the carbon assimilation cycle.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Two Calvin Cycle enzymes, NAD(P)-dependent glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and phosphoribulokinase (PRK) form a multiprotein complex with CP12, a small intrinsically-unstructured protein. Under oxidizing conditions, association with CP12 confers redox-sensitivity to the otherwise redox-insensitive A isoform of GAPDH (GapA) and provides an additional level of down-regulation to the redox-regulated PRK. To determine if CP12-mediated regulation is specific for GAPDH and PRK in vivo, a high molecular weight complex containing CP12 was isolated from tobacco chloroplasts and leaves and its protein composition was characterized.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

BAM1 is a plastid-targeted β-amylase of Arabidopsis thaliana specifically activated by reducing conditions. Among eight different chloroplast thioredoxin isoforms, thioredoxin f1 was the most efficient redox mediator, followed by thioredoxins m1, m2, y1, y2, and m4. Plastid-localized NADPH-thioredoxin reductase (NTRC) was also able partially to restore the activity of oxidized BAM1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The crystal structure of the A(4) isoform of photosynthetic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) from Arabidopsis thaliana, expressed in recombinant form and complexed with NAD, is reported. The crystals, which were grown in 2.4 M ammonium sulfate and 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In oxygenic photosynthetic organisms, the activities of two Calvin cycle enzymes (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, GAPDH and phosphoribulokinase, PRK) are regulated by CP12-mediated complex formation. The Arabidopsis genome contains three genes encoding different CP12 isoforms (CP12-1, At2g47400; CP12-2, At3g62410 and CP12-3, At1g76560), all plastid-targeted, as demonstrated by localization in the chloroplast stroma of CP12 precursor sequences fused with the green fluorescence protein (GFP). The disorder predictor PONDR classified Arabidopsis CP12s as largely disordered proteins, and circular dichroism spectra confirmed these predictions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The Calvin cycle enzymes glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and phosphoribulokinase (PRK) can form under oxidizing conditions a supramolecular complex with the regulatory protein CP12. Both GAPDH and PRK activities are inhibited within the complex, but they can be fully restored by reduced thioredoxins (TRXs). We have investigated the interactions of eight different chloroplast thioredoxin isoforms (TRX f1, m1, m2, m3, m4, y1, y2, x) with GAPDH (A(4), B(4), and B(8) isoforms), PRK and CP12 (isoform 2), all from Arabidopsis thaliana.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

CP12 is a protein of 8.7 kDa that contributes to Calvin cycle regulation by acting as a scaffold element in the formation of a supramolecular complex with glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and phosphoribulokinase (PRK) in photosynthetic organisms. NMR studies of recombinant CP12 (isoform 2) of Arabidopsis thaliana show that CP12-2 is poorly structured.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Calvin cycle enzymes glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and phosphoribulokinase (PRK) form together with the regulatory peptide CP12 a supramolecular complex in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) that could be reconstituted in vitro using purified recombinant proteins. Both enzyme activities were strongly influenced by complex formation, providing an effective means for regulation of the Calvin cycle in vivo. PRK and CP12, but not GapA (A(4) isoform of GAPDH), are redox-sensitive proteins.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Photosynthetic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and phosphoribulokinase (PRK) interact in the chloroplast stroma through the action of the small peptide CP12. This supramolecular complex concurs with the light-dependent modulation in vivo of GAPDH and PRK activities. The expression patterns of several genes potentially involved in the formation of the complex have been studied.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

During both in vivo and in vitro development, cerebellar granule cells depend on the activity of the NMDA glutamate receptor subtype for survival and full differentiation. With the present results, we demonstrate that CREB activation, downstream of the NMDA receptor, is a necessary step to ensure survival of these neurons. The levels of CREB expression and activity increase progressively during the second week of postnatal cerebellar development and the phosphorylated form of CREB is localized selectively to cerebellar granule cells during the critical developmental stages examined.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: fopen(/var/lib/php/sessions/ci_session21ptru6a09fj3fl98cldaumb8m9of0ef): Failed to open stream: No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 177

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_start(): Failed to read session data: user (path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Session/Session.php

Line Number: 137

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once