• Molecules and Cells
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.45-59
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• 2007

We describe the gene expression profile of third leaves of rice (cv. Nipponbare) seedlings subjected to salt stress (130 mM NaCl). Transcripts of Mn-SOD, Cu/Zn-SOD, cytosolic and stromal APX, GR and CatB were up-regulated, whereas expression of thylakoid-bound APX and CatA were down-regulated. The levels of the compatible solute proline and of transcripts of its biosynthetic gene, ${\Delta}^1$-pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase (P5CS), were strongly increased by salt stress. Interestingly, a potential compatible solute, ${\gamma}$-aminobutyric acid (GABA), was also found to be strongly induced by salt stress along with marked up-regulation of transcripts of GABA-transaminase. A dye-swap rice DNA microarray analysis identified a large number of genes whose expression in third leaves was altered by salt stress. Among 149 genes whose expression was altered at all the times assayed (3, 4 and 6 days) during salt stress, there were 47 annotated novel genes and 76 unknown genes. These results provide new insight into the effect of salt stress on the expression of genes related to antioxidant enzymes, proline and GABA as well as of genes in several functional categories.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 2003

Pycnogenol (PYC) is believed to have potential as a therapeutic agent against free radical-mediated oxidative stress. It is important, therefore, to understand the interactions between PYC and cellular defenses against oxidative stress. Toward this end, we analyzed the survival rates on the gene expression responses of E. coli sod katG mutants to PYC after pre-treatment of PQ or H$_2$O$_2$-mediated stress under aerobic conditions. We identified SOD induced by PYC, but not HP1 in sod hate mutants. A striking result was the PYC induction of SOD with antioxidant property in single katG mutant cells, particularly MnSOD and CuZnSOD. These inductions were further increased with oxidative stress, while HP1 was not induced in these conditions. The effects of pycnogenol treatment on these cells depend in part on its concentration on the stress response. Protective effects of PYC exposure which affected gene expression in cells were consistent with cell survival rates. Our results demonstrate that pycnogenol may alter the stress response gene expression in a specific manner such as SOXRS because PYC induction of single mutant only worked under increased PQ stress. All together our data indicate that SOD activity is essential for the cellular defense against PQ-mediated oxidative stress, suggesting that PYC may not be effective as an antioxidant in only oxidative stress conditions. On the other hand, it was expected that PYC may play a role as a pro-oxidant and if it is available for use, it should be evaluated carefully.

• Plant Biotechnology Reports
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.61-69
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• 2011

The dehydration-responsive element binding proteins (DREB1)/C-repeat (CRT) binding factors (CBF) function as transcription factors and play an important role in agricultural biotechnology and molecular biology studies of drought and freezing stress tolerance. We generated transgenic Lolium perenne plants containing the PCR-cloned Arabidopsis DREB1A/CBF3 gene (AtDREB1A/CBF3) to study the function of this gene construct in drought and freezing tolerance in a species of turfgrass. Compared to the control, AtDREB1A/CBF3 transgenic L. perenne plants showed enhanced drought and freezing stress tolerance. The activities of the enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) were higher in transgenic plants than in the non-transgenic plant control. These results demonstrate that the expression of the AtDREB1A/CBF3 gene in transgenic L. perenne plants enhanced drought and freezing tolerance and that the increased stress tolerance was associated with the increased activities of antioxidant enzymes. These results are relevant to stress biology and biotechnology studies of turfgrass.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.462-471
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• 2017

Thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP), the active form of thiamine is a cofactor for enzymes involved in central metabolism pathways. However, it is also known to have a role as a stress signaling molecule in response to environmental changes. Anabaena sp. and N. oculata are microorganisms which are abundantly found in Malaysia's freshwater and marine ecosystem. However, not much studies have been done especially in regards to thiamine biosynthesis. This work aimed to amplify of gene transcripts coding for thiamine biosynthesis enzymes besides looking at the expression of thiamine biosynthesis genes upon stress application. Various stress inducers were applied to the cultures and RNA was extracted at different time points. The first two genes, ThiC and ThiG/Thi4 encoding enzymes of the pyrimidine and thiazole branch respectively in the thiamine biosynthesis pathway were identified and amplified. The expression of the genes were analysed via RT-PCR and the intensity of bands were analysed using ImageJ software. The results showed up to 4-fold increase in the expression of ThiC and ThiG gene transcript as compared to control sample in Anabaena sp. ThiC gene in N. oculata showed an expression of 6-fold higher as compared to control sample. In conclusion, stresses induced the expression of the gene coding for one of the most important enzymes in thiamine biosynthesis pathway. This is an agreement with the hypothesis that overexpression of thiamine is crucial in assisting plants to combat abiotic stresses.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.360-370
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• 2009

Genetic factors clearly play a role in carcinogenesis, but migrant studies provide unequivocal evidence that environmental factors are critical in defining cancer risk. Therefore, one may expect that the lower availability of substrate for biochemical reactions leads to more genetic changes in enzyme function; for example, most studies have indicated the variant MTHFR genotype 677TT is related to biomarkers, such as homocysteine concentrations or global DNA methylation particularly in a low folate diet. The modification of a phenotype related to a genotype, particularly by dietary habits, could support the notion that some of inconsistencies in findings from molecular epidemiologic studies could be due to differences in the populations studied and unaccounted underlying characteristics mediating the relationship between genetic polymorphisms and the actual phenotypes. Given the evidence that diet can modify cancer risk, gene-diet interactions in cancer etiology would be anticipated. However, much of the evidence in this area comes from observational epidemiology, which limits the causal inference. Thus, the investigation of these interactions is essential to gain a full understanding of the impact of genetic variation on health outcomes. This report reviews current approaches to gene-diet interactions in epidemiological studies. Characteristics of gene and dietary factors are divided into four categories: one carbon metabolism-related gene polymorphisms and dietary factors including folate, vitamin B group and methionines; oxidative stress-related gene polymorphisms and antioxidant nutrients including vegetable and fruit intake; carcinogen-metabolizing gene polymorphisms and meat intake including heterocyclic amins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon; and other gene-diet interactive effect on cancer.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.384-391
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• 2008

Rice blast disease, caused by the pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe grisea, is a serious issue in rice (Oryza sativa L.) growing regions of the world. Transcript profiling in rice inoculated with the fungus has been investigated using the transcriptomics technology, serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE). Short sequence tags containing sufficient information which are ten base-pairs representing the unique transcripts were identified by SAGE technology. We identified a total of 910 tag sequences via the GenBank database, and the resulting genes were shown to be up-regulated in all functional categories under the fungal biotic stress. Compared to the compatible interaction, the stress and defense genes in the incompatible interaction appear to be more up-regulated. Particularly, thaumatin-like gene (TLP) was investigated in determining the gene and protein expression level utilizing Northern and Western blotting analyses, resulting in an increase in both the gene and the protein expression level which arose earlier in the incompatible interaction than in the compatible interaction.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.524-529
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• 2007

We carried out to study the function of ArgE in transgenic rice plants, which were confirmed by PCR analysis and hygromycin selection. Transgenic rice plants were with selectable marker gene(HPT) inserted in genome of the rice. Southern analysis with hpt probe confirmed by two restriction enzymes that copy numbers of the selectable gene was introduced into the plant genome. We displayed that the relationship between drought stress and ArgE gene with the overexpressing rice plants. From this result, we observed that the degree of leaves damage has no difference in control and transgenic lines. The total RNAs were extracted from 6 weeks-seedling in normal condition in order to examine their expression levels with ArgE-overexpressed transgenic rice. In particular, expression patterns of genes encoding enzymes involved in abiotic stress, including drought and salt stresses. OsGF14a and OsSalt were investigated by reverse transcription-PCR(RT-PCR). Expression levels of the OsSalt gene decreased significantly in transgenic rice plants compared to control plant. However, ion leakage measurement did not demonstrate any leaves damage change between control and ArgE transgenic plants exposure to mannitol treatment. These results suggest that expression of the ArgE is not involved in tolerance for drought stress in rice but may playa role of signaling networks for salt-induced genes.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.281-284
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• 2012

This study demonstrated that upregulation of gene expression of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress chaperones (Bip, ERp29, calnexin, and PDI), ER stress sensors (PERK, ATF6, and Ire1), and cAMP phosphodiesterase 7A1 (cAMP PDE7A1) was induced by ER stresses in FRTL5 cells. While removing A23187 from the culture medium restored upregulation of cAMP PDE7A1 gene expression, removal of thapsigargin did not recover its expression. In addition, cAMP PDE7A1 gene expression was strongly inhibited by treatment with A23187 combined with thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). The results are the first to show that ER stress induces cAMP PDE7A1 gene expression.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2018.10a
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• pp.100-100
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• 2018

Zoysia japonica Steud.(Zj) is a typical warm-season Korean lawn grass, which is used in many places such as river banks, roadside and soccer fields in Korea. Recently, it has also been used in school yards and the Saemangeum reclaimed land to reduce water pollution. Although the cultivated area of turfgrass is steadily increasing worldwide, it grows fast requiring frequent mowing and is difficult to grow in shady areas and the cold region. Therefore this study aims searching for useful gene(s) to develop abiotic stress tolerant and dwarf zoysiagrass. We isolated Ycf4 gene based on the sequence from Oryza sativa Japonica through RT-PCR and RACE PCR. Ultimately, open reading frame (ORF) of ZjYcf4 was 558bp long, encoding a protein of 186 amino acid residues. NCBI blast results showed that the ZjYcf4 protein is evolutionarily closely related to Ycf4 protein from Zoysia macrantha and Setaria italica (100% and 98%, respectively). To determine whether ZjYcf4 was involved in environmental stress in wild-type zoysiagrass, expression patterns of the gene were analyzed by real-time PCR under salt, cold and dark conditions. They were analyzed after each stress treatment for 3 hours. In salt and cold stresses, the expression was higher compared to control (3-fold and 1.5-fold, respectively), although there was a 1.6-fold decrease in expression under dark stress treatment. As reported previously, we suggest that ZjYcf4 gene affects abiotic stress such as salt, cold and dark.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.88-93
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• 2001

Oxidative stress is one of the major limiting factor in plant productivity. Reactive oxygens species (ROS) generated during metabolic processes damage cellular functions and consequently lead to disease, senescence and cell death. Plants have evolved an efficient defense system by which the ROS is scavenged by antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX). Attempts to reduce oxidative damages under the stress conditions have included the manipulation of 갠 scavenging enzymes by gene transfer technology. Increased SOD activities of transgenic plants lead to increased resistance against oxidative stresses derived from methyl viologen (MV), and from photooxidative damage caused by high light and low temperature. Transgenic tobacco plants overexpressing APX showed reduced damage following either MV treatment of photooxidative treatment. Overexpression of glutathion reductase (GR) leads to increase in pool of ascorbate and GSH, known as small antioxidant molecules. These results indicate through overexpression of enzymes involved in ROS-scavenging could maintain or improve the plant productivities under environment stress condition. In this study, the rational approaches to develop stress-tolerant plants by gene manipulation of antioxidant enzymes will be introduced to provide solutions for the global food and environmental problems in the $21^\textrm{st}$ century.