Abstract
Pectin methylesterase (PME) is a cell-wall enzyme that acts as a growth and morphogenesis factor in higher plants and is involved in gene silencing, plant virus reproduction, and transgenesis. A study was made of the role of PME as a stress protein in host plant-virus interactions. PME enzymatic activity was induced, not only by an additional PME gene copy, but also by an empty vector. PME suppressed tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) reproduction, including short-and long-distance virus movement in plants. Surprisingly, elevated PME activity was observed in intact stably transformed transgenic plants. For example, PME activity was increased in transgenic Nicotiana tabacum and N. benthamiana plants expressing the genes for the TMV movement protein and GFP and in tomato plants with cosuppression of the polygalacturonase gene. Activation of light-inducible psbO induced transcription of the PME gene. It was suggested that PME is involved in maintaining the stability of the plant transcriptome and restores its status quo upon viral infection, transformation with a foreign gene, or excess transcription of the cell genome.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Dorokhov Yu.L. 2007. Gene silencing in plants. Mol. Biol. 41, 579–592.
Baulcombe D.C. 2007. Molecular biology. Amplified silencing. Science. 315, 199–200.
Li F., Zhang S. 2006. Virus counterdefense: Diverse strategies for evading the RNA-silencing immunity. Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 60, 503–531.
Bernstein E., Caudy A.A., Hammond S.M., Hannon G.J. 2001. Role for a bidentate ribonuclease in the initiation step of RNA interference. Nature. 409, 363–366.
Margis R., Fusaro A.F., Smith N.A., et al. 2006. The evolution and diversification of Dicers in plants. FEBS Lett. 580, 2442–2450.
Wen F.S., Zhu Y.M., Hawes M.C. 1999. Effect of pectin methylesterase gene expression on pea root development. Plant Cell. 11, 1129–1140.
Micheli F. 2001. Pectin methylesterases: Cell wall enzymes with important roles in plant physiology. Trends Plant Sci. 6, 414–419.
Markovic O., Janecek S. 2004. Pectin methylesterases: Sequence-structural features and phylogenetic relationships. Carbohydr. Res. 339, 2281–2295.
Dorokhov Y.L., Frolova O.Y., Skurat E.V., et al. 2006. A novel function for a ubiquitous plant enzyme pectin methylesterase: The enhancer of RNA silencing. FEBS Lett. 580, 3329–3334.
Dorokhov Yu.L., Makinen K.M., Frolova O.Yu., et al. 1999. A novel function for a ubiquitous plant enzyme pectin methylesterase: The host-cell receptor for the tobacco mosaic virus movement protein. FEBS Lett. 461, 223–228.
Chen M.-H., Sheng J., Hind. G., et al. 2000. Interaction between the tobacco mosaic virus movement protein and host cell pectin methylesterases is required for viral cell-to-cell movement. EMBO J. 19, 913–920.
Chen M.H., Citovsky V. 2003. Systemic movement of a tobamovirus requires host cell pectin methylesterase. Plant J. 35, 386–392.
Dorokhov Y.L., Frolova O.Y., Skurat E.V., et al. 2006. Role of the leader sequence in tobacco pectin methylesterase secretion. FEBS Lett. 580, 3872–3878.
Henderson I.R, Zhang X., Lu C., et al. 2006. Dissecting Arabidopsis thaliana DICER function in small RNA processing, gene silencing and DNA methylation patterning. Nature Genet. 38, 721–725.
Takeda A., Tsukuda M., Mizumoto H., et al. 2005. A plant RNA virus suppresses RNA silencing through viral RNA replication. EMBO J. 24, 3147–3157.
Dorokhov Yu.L., Skulachev M.V., Ivanov P.A., et al. 2002. Polypurine (A)-rich sequences promote cross-kingdom conservation of internal ribosome entry. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 99, 5301–5306.
Shivprasad S., Pogue G.P., Lewandowski D.J., et al. 1999. Heterologous sequences greatly affect foreign gene expression in tobacco mosaic virus-based vectors. Virology. 255, 312–323.
Downie B., Dirk L.M.A., Handfield K.A., et al. 1998. A gel diffusion assay for quantification of pectin methylesterase activity. Anal. Biochem. 264, 149–157.
Bevan M. 1984. Binary Agrobacterium vectors for plant transformation. Nucleic Acids Res. 12, 8711–8721.
Deom C.M., Wolf S., Holt C.A., et al. 1991. Altered function of the tobacco mosaic virus movement protein in a hypersensitive host. Virology. 180, 251–256.
Dorokhov Yu.L., Skurat E.V., Frolova O.Yu., et al. 2004. Inverse dependence between pektin methylesterase gene expression and tobamovirus reproduction efficiency in Ninitiana banthamiana plants. Dokl. Akad. Nauk. 394, 269–271.
Han Y., Grierson D. 2002. The influence of inverted repeats on the production of small antisense RNAs involved in gene silencing. Mol. Genet. Genomics. 267, 629–635.
Han Y., Grierson D. 2002. Relationship between small antisense RNAs and aberrant RNAs associated with sense transgene mediated gene silencing in tomato. Plant J. 4, 509–519.
Han Y., Griffiths A., Li H., Grierson D. 2004. The effect of endogenous mRNA levels on co-suppression in tomato. FEBS Lett. 563, 123–128.
Reymond P., Weber H., Damond M., Farmer E.E. 2000. Differential gene expression in response to mechanical wounding and insect feeding in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 12, 707–719.
Palomares R., Herrmann R.G., Oelmuller R. 1993. Post-transcriptional and post-translational regulatory steps are crucial in controlling the appearance and stability of thylakoid polypeptides during the transition of etiolated tobacco seedlings to white light. FEBS Lett. 217, 345–352.
Lander E.S., Linton L.M., Birren B., et al. 2001. Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome. Nature. 409, 860–921.
RIKEN genome exploration research group and genome science group (genome network project core group) and the FANTOM consortium. 2005. Science. 309, 1564–1566.
Yamada K., Lim J., Dale J.M., et al.. 2003. Empirical analysis of transcriptional activity in Arabidopsis genome. Science. 302, 842–846.
Bickel K.S., Morris D.R. 2006. Silencing the transcriptome’s dark matter: Mechanisms for suppressing translation of intergenic transcripts. Mol. Cell. 22, 309–316.
Reymond P., Weber H., Damond M., Farmer E.E. 2000. Spatial distributions of expansion rate, cell division rate and cell size in maize leaves: A synthesis of the effects of soil water status, evaporative demand and temperature. Plant Cell. 12, 707–719.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © T.V. Gasanova, E.V. Skurat, O.Yu. Frolova, M.A. Semashko, Y.L. Dorokhov, 2008, published in Molekulyarnaya Biologiya, 2008, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 478–486.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gasanova, T.V., Skurat, E.V., Frolova, O.Y. et al. Pectin methylesterase as a factor of plant transcriptome stability. Mol Biol 42, 421–429 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0026893308030102
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0026893308030102