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ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS AND ADAPTATION TO STRESS

The Central Role of a SNRK2 Kinase in Sulfur Deprivation Responses^1,[W],[OA]

Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution, Stanford, California 94305 (D.G.-B., A.R.G.); Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803 (S.V.P.); and Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (W.P.)

In the absence of sulfur (S), Chlamydomonas reinhardtii increases the abundance of several transcripts encoding proteins associated with S acquisition and assimilation, conserves S amino acids, and acclimates to suboptimal growth conditions. A positive regulator, SAC1 (for sulfur acclimation protein 1), and a negative regulator, SAC3, were shown to participate in the control of these processes. In this study, we investigated two allelic mutants (ars11 and ars44) affected in a gene encoding a SNRK2 (for SNF1-related protein kinase 2) kinase designated SNRK2.1. Like the sac1 mutant, both snrk2.1 mutants were deficient in the expression of S-responsive genes. Furthermore, the mutant cells bleached more rapidly than wild-type cells during S deprivation, although the phenotypes of ars11 and ars44 were not identical: ars11 exhibited a more severe phenotype than either ars44 or sac1. The phenotypic differences between the ars11 and ars44 mutants reflected distinct alterations of SNRK2.1 mRNA splicing caused by insertion of the marker gene. The ars11 phenotype could be rescued by complementation with SNRK2.1 cDNA. In contrast to the nonepistatic relationship between SAC3 and SAC1, characterization of the sac3 ars11 double mutant showed that SNRK2.1 is epistatic to SAC3. These data reveal the crucial regulatory role of SNRK2.1 in the signaling cascade critical for eliciting S deprivation responses in Chlamydomonas. The phylogenetic relationships and structures of the eight members of the SNRK2 family in Chlamydomonas are discussed.

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: David Gonzalez-Ballester (davidg3{at}stanford.edu).

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

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www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.108.116137

^* Corresponding author; e-mail davidg3{at}stanford.edu.

Received January 9, 2008; accepted March 2, 2008; published March 7, 2008.