Global warming is causing rapid changes in mean annual temperature and more severe drought periods. These are major contributors of forest dieback, which is becoming more frequent and widespread. In this work, we investigated how the transcriptome of Pinus radiata changed during initial heat stress response and acclimation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHow different stressors impact plant health and memory when they are imposed in different generations in wild ecosystems is still scarce. Here, we address how different environments shape heritable memory for the next generation in seeds and seedlings of Pinus radiata, a long-lived species with economic interest. The performance of the seedlings belonging to two wild clonal subpopulations (optimal fertirrigation vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Promoter hypermethylation of tumour suppressor genes is frequently observed during the malignant transformation of colorectal cancer (CRC). However, whether this epigenetic mechanism is functional in cancer or is a mere consequence of the carcinogenic process remains to be elucidated.
Results: In this work, we performed an integrative multi-omic approach to identify gene candidates with strong correlations between DNA methylation and gene expression in human CRC samples and a set of 8 colon cancer cell lines.
Microplastics are one of the major pollutants in aquatic environments. Among their components, Bisphenol A (BPA) is one of the most abundant and dangerous, leading to endocrine disorders deriving even in different types of cancer in mammals. However, despite this evidence, the xenobiotic effects of BPA over plantae and microalgae still need to be better understood at the molecular level.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe recovery and maintenance of plant homeostasis under stressful environments are complex processes involving organelle crosstalk for a coordinated cellular response. Here, we revealed through nuclear and chloroplast subcellular proteomics, biochemical cell profiles and targeted transcriptomics how chloroplasts and nuclei developed their responses under increased temperatures in a long-lived species (Pinus radiata). Parallel to photosynthetic impairment and reactive oxygen species production in the chloroplast, a DNA damage response was triggered in the nucleus followed by an altered chromatin conformation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the importance of dormancy and dormancy cycling for plants' fitness and life cycle phenology, a comprehensive characterization of the global and cellular epigenetic patterns across space and time in different seed dormancy states is lacking. Using Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medik.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBased on the hypothesis that embryo development is a crucial stage for the formation of stable epigenetic marks that could modulate the behaviour of the resulting plants, in this study, radiata pine somatic embryogenesis was induced at high temperatures (23 °C, eight weeks, control; 40 °C, 4 h; 60 °C, 5 min) and the global methylation and hydroxymethylation levels of emerging embryonal masses and somatic plants were analysed using LC-ESI-MS/ MS-MRM. In this context, the expression pattern of six genes previously described as stress-mediators was studied throughout the embryogenic process until plant level to assess whether the observed epigenetic changes could have provoked a sustained alteration of the transcriptome. Results indicated that the highest temperatures led to hypomethylation of both embryonal masses and somatic plants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The exposure of microalgae and plants to low UV-C radiation dosages can improve their biomass composition and stress tolerance. Despite UV-C sharing these effects with UV-A/B but at much lower dosages, UV-C sensing and signal mechanisms are still mostly unknown. Thus, we have described and integrated the proteometabolomic and physiological changes occurring in -a simple Plantae model-into the first 24 h after a short and low-intensity UV-C irradiation in order to reconstruct the microalgae response system to this stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe complexity of the plant cell proteome, exhibiting thousands of proteins whose abundance varies in several orders of magnitude, makes impossible to cover most of the plant proteins using standard shotgun-based approaches. Despite this general description of plant proteomes, the complexity is not a big issue (current protocols and instrumentation allow for the identification of several thousand proteins per injection), low or medium abundant proteins cannot be detected most of times, being necessary to fraction or perform targeted analyses in order to detect and quantify them. Among fractioning choices, cell fractioning in its different organelles is a good strategy for gaining not only a deeper coverage of the proteome but also the basis for understanding organelle function, protein dynamics, and trafficking within the cell, as nuclear and chloroplast communication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicroalgae are gaining attention in industry for their high value-added biomolecules and biomass production and for studying fundamental processes in biology. The introduction of novel approaches for understanding and modeling molecular networks at different omic levels is paramount for increasing the productivity of these organisms. However, the construction of these networks requires high quality datasets with, if possible, perfectly overlapping datasets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFApomixis was originally defined as the replacement of sexual reproduction by an asexual process that does not involve fertilization but, in angiosperms, it is often used in the more restricted sense of asexual reproduction through seeds. In ferns, apomixis combines the production of unreduced spores (diplospory) and the formation of sporophytes from somatic cells of the prothallium (apogamy). The genes that control the onset of apogamy in ferns are largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite it being an important issue in the context of climate change, for most plant species it is not currently known how abiotic stresses affect nuclear proteomes and mediate memory effects. This study examines how Pinus radiata nuclei respond, adapt, 'remember', and 'learn' from heat stress. Seedlings were heat-stressed at 45 °C for 10 d and then allowed to recover.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHistone H4 acetylation at Lysine 16 (H4K16ac) is a key epigenetic mark involved in gene regulation, DNA repair and chromatin remodeling, and though it is known to be essential for embryonic development, its role during adult life is still poorly understood. Here we show that this lysine is massively hyperacetylated in peripheral neutrophils. Genome-wide mapping of H4K16ac in terminally differentiated blood cells, along with functional experiments, supported a role for this histone post-translational modification in the regulation of cell differentiation and apoptosis in the hematopoietic system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe SnRK (Snf1-Related protein Kinase) gene family plays an important role in energy sensing and stress-adaptive responses in plant systems. In this study, Chlamydomonas CKIN family (SnRK in Arabidopsis) was defined after a genome-wide analysis of all sequenced Chlorophytes. Twenty-two sequences were defined as plant SnRK orthologs in Chlamydomonas and classified into two subfamilies: CKIN1 and CKIN2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLong-lived conifers are vulnerable to climate change because classical evolutionary processes are slow in developing adaptive responses. Therefore, the capacity of a genotype to adopt different phenotypes is important. Gene expression is the primary mechanism that converts genome-encoded information into phenotypes, and DNA methylation is employed in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe integrative omics approach is crucial to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying high-temperature response in non-model species. Based on future scenarios of heat increase, plants were exposed to a temperature of 40°C for a period of 5 days, including recovered plants (30 days after last exposure to 40°C) in the analysis. The analysis of the metabolome using complementary mass spectrometry techniques (GC-MS and LC-Orbitrap-MS) allowed the reliable quantification of 2,287 metabolites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal DNA methylation was classically considered the relative percentage of 5-methylcysine (5mC) with respect to total cytosine (C). Early approaches were based on the use of high-performance separation technologies and UV detection. However, the recent development of protocols using mass spectrometry for the detection has increased sensibility and permitted the precise identification of peak compounds based on their molecular masses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The use of enriched stable isotopes is of outstanding importance in chemical metrology as it allows the application of isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS). Primary methods based on IDMS ensure the quality of the analytical measurements and traceability of the results to the international system of units. However, the synthesis of isotopically labelled molecules from enriched stable isotopes is an expensive and a difficult task.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPinus radiata seedlings, the most widely planted pine species in the world, were exposed to temperatures within a range mimicking future scenarios based on current models of heat increase. The short-term heat response in P. radiata was studied in detail by exploring the metabolome, proteome and targeted transcriptome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobally expected changes in environmental conditions, especially the increase of UV irradiation, necessitate extending our knowledge of the mechanisms mediating tree species adaptation to this stress. This is crucial for designing new strategies to maintain future forest productivity. Studies focused on environmentally realistic dosages of UV irradiation in forest species are scarce.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough responses to UV stress have been characterised at system and cellular levels, the dynamics of the nuclear proteome triggered in this situation are still unknown, despite its essential role in regulating gene expression and in last term plant physiology. To fill this gap, we characterised the variations in the nuclear proteome after 2 h and 16 h (8 h/day) of UV irradiation by using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based shotgun proteomics methods combined with novel bioinformatics workflows that were employed in the manuscript entitled "The variations in the nuclear proteome reveal new transcription factors and mechanisms involved in UV stress response in Pinus radiata" (Pascual et al., 2016) [1].
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: The importance of UV stress and its side-effects over the loss of plant productivity in forest species demands a deeper understanding of how pine trees respond to UV irradiation. Although the response to UV stress has been characterized at system and cellular levels, the dynamics within the nuclear proteome triggered by UV is still unknown despite that they are essential for gene expression and regulation of plant physiology. To fill this gap this work aims to characterize the variations in the nuclear proteome as a response to UV irradiation by using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based methods combined with novel bioinformatics workflows.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite great interest, not only from the economic point of view but also in terms of basic science, research on heat stress tolerance in conifers remains scarce. To fill this gap, a time-course experiment using expected temperature increase was performed aiming to identify physiological and biochemical traits that allow the characterization of heat-induced thermotolerance and recovery in Pinus radiata D. Don plants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeedle maturation is a complex process that involves cell growth, differentiation and tissue remodelling towards the acquisition of full physiological competence. Leaf induction mechanisms are well known; however, those underlying the acquisition of physiological competence are still poorly understood, especially in conifers. We studied the specific epigenetic regulation of genes defining organ function (PrRBCS and PrRBCA) and competence and stress response (PrCSDP2 and PrSHMT4) during three stages of needle development and one de-differentiated control.
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