OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE

This Article Free via Open Access: OA OA Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Data OA All Versions of this Article: 150/4/1972    most recent pp.109.135327v2 pp.109.135327v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Google Scholar Articles by Maruyama, K. Articles by Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, K. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Maruyama, K. Articles by Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, K. Agricola Articles by Maruyama, K. Articles by Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, K.

ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS AND ADAPTATION TO STRESS

Metabolic Pathways Involved in Cold Acclimation Identified by Integrated Analysis of Metabolites and Transcripts Regulated by DREB1A and DREB2A^1,[W],[OA]

Biological Resources Division, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305–8686, Japan (K.M., S.K., K.Y., Y.S., K.Y., S.M., K.Y.-S.); Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Kisarazu, Chiba 292–0818, Japan (M.T., Y.M., R.S., H.S., K. Saito, D.S.); Laboratory of Plant Molecular Physiology, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113–8657, Japan (S.K., K.Y., Y.S., S.M., K.Y.-S.); Gene Discovery Research Group, RIKEN Plant Science Center, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305–0074, Japan (K.U., M.F., K. Shinozaki); and Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University, Chiba 263–8522, Japan (K. Saito)

DREB1A/CBF3 and DREB2A are transcription factors that specifically interact with a cis-acting dehydration-responsive element (DRE), which is involved in cold- and dehydration-responsive gene expression in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Overexpression of DREB1A improves stress tolerance to both freezing and dehydration in transgenic plants. In contrast, overexpression of an active form of DREB2A results in significant stress tolerance to dehydration but only slight tolerance to freezing in transgenic plants. The downstream gene products for DREB1A and DREB2A are reported to have similar putative functions, but downstream genes encoding enzymes for carbohydrate metabolism are very different between DREB1A and DREB2A. We demonstrate that under cold and dehydration conditions, the expression of many genes encoding starch-degrading enzymes, sucrose metabolism enzymes, and sugar alcohol synthases changes dynamically; consequently, many kinds of monosaccharides, disaccharides, trisaccharides, and sugar alcohols accumulate in Arabidopsis. We also show that DREB1A overexpression can cause almost the same changes in these metabolic processes and that these changes seem to improve freezing and dehydration stress tolerance in transgenic plants. In contrast, DREB2A overexpression did not increase the level of any of these metabolites in transgenic plants. Strong freezing stress tolerance of the transgenic plants overexpressing DREB1A may depend on accumulation of these metabolites.

The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Kazuko Yamaguchi-Shinozaki (kazukoys{at}jircas.affrc.go.jp).

^[W] The online version of this article contains Web-only data.

^[OA] Open Access articles can be viewed online without a subscription.

www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.109.135327

^* Corresponding author; e-mail kazukoys{at}jircas.affrc.go.jp.

Received January 5, 2009; accepted June 3, 2009; published June 5, 2009.