Time lags identified between gene and protein expression for overwintering plants

November 20, 2014

A possibility of new post-transcriptional regulations under low temperature stress conditions

Overwintering plants ready themselves for winter through a cold acclimation process as the temperature begins to drop in autumn. When winter is over plants resume growth, after sensing warm temperatures, by suppressing cold tolerance through a deacclimation process.

A joint RIKEN CSRS and Iwate University research group performed comparative transcriptomic and proteomic analyses using overwintering Arabidopsis. They found that even though cold acclimation increases gene expression, protein expression does not appear until deacclimation begins. They also determined that there is a great number of genes specifically induced at the transcriptional level. The findings indicate a mechanism that is programmed differently from the normal response to cold stress, regulating gene and protein expression.

Current mainstream research is focused on comprehensive analysis of gene expression. However, the above results indicate analysis of protein expression and function will become increasingly important.

Original article
Molecular & Cellular Proteomics doi: 10.1074/mcp.M114.039081
K. Nakaminami, A. Matsui, H. Nakagami, A. Minami, Y. Nomura, M. Tanaka, T. Morosawa, J. Ishida, S. Takahashi Matsuo Uemura, K. Shirasu, M. Seki,
"Analysis of differential expression patterns of mRNA and protein during cold-acclimation and deacclimation in Arabidopsis".
Contact
Motoaki Seki
Team Leader
Plant Genomic Network Research Team