GENFOR Grupo de investigación en Genética y Fisiología Forestal, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
Planta. 2012 Dec;236(6):1863-74. doi: 10.1007/s00425-012-1737-4. Epub 2012 Aug 26.
Dehydrins are thought to play an essential role in the response, acclimation and tolerance to different abiotic stresses, such as cold and drought. These proteins have been classified into five groups according to the presence of conserved and repeated motifs in their amino acid sequence. Due to their putative functions in the response to stress, dehydrins have been often used as candidate genes in studies on population variability and local adaptation to environmental conditions. However, little is still known regarding the differential role played by such groups or the mechanism underlying their function. Based on the sequences corresponding to dehydrins available in public databases we have isolated eight different dehydrins from cDNA of Pinus pinaster. We have obtained also their genomic sequences and identified their intron/exon structure. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis of their expression pattern in needles, stems and roots during a severe and prolonged drought stress, similar to the ones trees must face in nature, is also reported. Additionally, we have identified two amino acid motifs highly conserved and repeated in Pinaceae dehydrins and absent in angiosperms, presumably related to the divergent expression profiles observed.
脱水素被认为在应对、适应和耐受不同非生物胁迫（如寒冷和干旱）方面发挥着重要作用。这些蛋白质根据其氨基酸序列中保守和重复的模体存在情况被分为五个组。由于它们在应激反应中的潜在功能，脱水素经常被用作研究种群变异性和对环境条件的局部适应的候选基因。然而，对于这些组所发挥的不同作用或其功能的机制，人们仍然知之甚少。基于公共数据库中可用的脱水素序列，我们从 Pinus pinaster 的 cDNA 中分离出了 8 种不同的脱水素。我们还获得了它们的基因组序列，并确定了它们的内含子/外显子结构。报告还描述了在严重和持久干旱胁迫下（类似于树木在自然界中必须面对的胁迫），它们在针叶、茎和根中的表达模式的定量 RT-PCR 分析。此外，我们还鉴定了在松柏科脱水素中高度保守和重复的两个氨基酸模体，而在被子植物中不存在，推测与观察到的差异表达模式有关。
