• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.9
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• pp.705-713
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• 2016

The efficiency of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation in plants depends on the virulence of Agrobacterium strains, the plant tissue culture conditions, and the susceptibility of host plants. Understanding the molecular interactions between Agrobacterium and host plant cells is crucial when manipulating the susceptibility of recalcitrant crop plants and protecting orchard trees from crown gall disease. It was discovered that Arabidopsis voltage-dependent anion channel 1 (atvdac1) mutant has drastic effects on Agrobacterium-mediated tumorigenesis and growth developmental phenotypes, and that these effects are dependent on a Ws-0 genetic background. Genetic complementation of Arabidopsis vdac1 mutants and yeast porin1-deficient strain with members of the AtVDAC gene family revealed that AtVDAC1 is required for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, and there is weak functional redundancy between AtVDAC1 and AtVDAC3, which is independent of porin activity. Furthermore, atvdac1 mutants were deficient in transient and stable transformation by Agrobacterium, suggesting that AtVDAC1 is involved in the early stages of Agrobacterium infection prior to transferred-DNA (T-DNA) integration. Transgenic plants overexpressing AtVDAC1 not only complemented the phenotypes of the atvdac1 mutant, but also showed high efficiency of transient T-DNA gene expression; however, the efficiency of stable transformation was not affected. Moreover, the effect of phytohormone treatment on competence to Agrobacterium was compromised in atvdac1 mutants. These data indicate that AtVDAC1 regulates the competence of Arabidopsis to Agrobacterium infection.

• BMB Reports
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.178-185
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• 2002

The Arabidopsis thaliana S-Adenosylmethionine decarboxylase (AdoMetDC) cDNA ($GenBank^{TM}$ U63633) was cloned. Site-specific mutagenesis was performed to introduce mutations at the conserved cysteine $Cys^{50}$, $Cys^{83}$, and $Cys^{230}$, and $lys^{81}$ residues. In accordance with the human AdoMetDC, the C50A and C230A mutagenesis had minimal effect on catalytic activity, which was further supported by DTNB-mediated inactivation and reactivation. However, unlike the human AdoMetDC, the $Cys^{50}$ and $Cys^{230}$ mutants were much more thermally unstable than the wild type and other mutant AdoMetDC, suggesting the structural significance of cysteines. Furthermore, according to a circular dichroism spectrum analysis, the $Cys^{50}$ and $Cys^{230}$ mutants show a higher a-helix content and lower coiled-coil content when compared to that of wild type and the other mutant AdoMetDC. Also, the three-dimensional structure of Arabidopsis thaliana AdoMetDC could further support all of the data presented here. Summarily, we suggest that the $Cys^{50}$ and $Cys^{230}$ residues are structurally important.

• Plant Biotechnology Reports
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2011

A low acid phosphatase 3 (lap3) mutant was identified and characterized from an Arabidopsis activation-tagged (Weigel) population. The roots of the lap3 plants showed lower acid phosphatase (APase) activity compared to wild-type ones under low-Pi conditions ($10{\mu}M\;Pi$). Plasmid rescue experiments revealed that the activation-tagging vector was inserted into the intergenic region between At4g31540 and At4g31550 in the Arabidopsis genome. The genotypic segregation of the lap3 mutation was tightly linked with the phenotypic segregation of root APase activity in the prgeny of lap3. The transcript level of the At4g31520 (SDA1: SEVERE DEPOLYMERIZATION OF ACTIN 1), located 7.4 kb from the CaMV 35S enhancers in the lap3 mutant, was significantly reduced compared to that in the wild type. It was speculated that cellular actin polymerization may be involved in Pi acquisition in higher plants.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.170-182
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• 2011

Plants possess multiple resistance mechanisms that protect themselves against pathogen attack. To identify unknown components of the defense machinery in Arabidopsis, gene-expression changes were monitored in Arabidopsis thaliana under 18 different biotic or abiotic conditions using a DNA microarray representing approximately 25% of all Arabidopsis thaliana genes (www.genevestigator.com). Seventeen genes which are early responsive to salicylic acid (SA) treatment as well as pathogen infection were selected and their T-DNA insertion mutants were obtained from SALK institute. To elucidate the role of each gene in defense response, bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst) DC3000 was inoculated onto individual T-DNA insertion mutants. Four mutants exhibited decreased resistance and five mutants displayed significantly enhanced resistance against Pst DC3000-infection as measured by change in symptom development as compared to wild-type plants. Among them, member of uridin diphosphate (UDP)-glycosyltransferase (UGT) was of particular interest, since a UGT mutant (At1g05680) showed enhanced resistance to Pst-infection in Arabidopsis. In systemic acquired resistance (SAR) assay, this mutant showed enhanced activation of SAR. Also, the enhanced SAR correlated with increased expression of defense-related gene, AtPR1. These results emphasize that the glycosylation of UGT74E2 is a part of the SA-mediated disease-resistance mechanism.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.969-975
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• 2011

We focused on relationship between phytohormones and AtEXPA3 gene in gravitropic response of A. thaliana. RT-PCR analysis shows that AtEXPA3 was highly expressed in actively developing tissues such as leaf, rosette, root and flower tissues. AtEXPA3 gene expression was enhanced by gravistimulation, BR and IAA. Furthermore, decreased gravitropism was observed when treatment of AVG, an ethylene biosynthetic inhibitor, suggesting that ethylene has a gravistimulating effect itself as well as BRs and IAA. Inhibition of gravitropism in AtEXPA3 RNAi mutant suggests that BR, auxin and ethylene are playing roles as regulators of AtEXPA3. In addition, altered gravitropism in BRs signaling mutant (decreased in bri1-301, bak1, and increased BRI-GFP) indicated that BRs signaling mediated the gravitropism. In conclusion, gravitropic responses of Arabidopsis root resulting from root growth were mediated by increased expression of AtEXPA3 gene, which is stimulated by phytohormones.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.243-250
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• 2015

Patterning of the polar axis during the early leaf developmental stage is established by cell-to-cell communication between the shoot apical meristem (SAM) and the leaf primordia. In a previous study, we showed that the DRL1 gene, which encodes a homolog of the Elongator-associated protein KTI12 of yeast, acts as a positive regulator of adaxial leaf patterning and shoot meristem activity. To determine the evolutionally conserved functions of DRL1, we performed a comparison of the deduced amino acid sequence of DRL1 and its yeast homolog, KTI12, and found that while overall homology was low, well-conserved domains were presented. DRL1 contained two conserved plant-specific domains. Expression of the DRL1 gene in a yeast KTI12-deficient yeast mutant suppressed the growth retardation phenotype, but did not rescue the caffeine sensitivity, indicating that the role of Arabidopsis Elongator-associated protein is partially conserved with yeast KTI12, but may have changed between yeast and plants in response to caffeine during the course of evolution. In addition, elevated expression of DRL1 gene triggered zymocin sensitivity, while overexpression of KTI12 maintained zymocin resistance, indicating that the function of Arabidopsis DRL1 may not overlap with yeast KTI12 with regards to toxin sensitivity. In this study, expression analysis showed that class-I KNOX genes were downregulated in the shoot apex, and that YAB and KAN were upregulated in leaves of the Arabidopsis drl1- 101 mutant. Our results provide insight into the communication network between the SAM and leaf primordia required for the establishment of leaf polarity by mediating histone acetylation or through other mechanisms.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.38-43
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• 1999

Mutants of the monopartite geminivirus beet curly top virus (BCTV) have been screened for infectivity, systemic movement, replication and symptom development in Arabidopsis thaliana. As known by coding for coat protein, R1 mutant was not infectious and did not move systemically. R2, R3 and L2/L3 mutants produced milder symptoms compared to wild type BCTV but the infectivity was reduced by 40% to 60%. R2 ORF is thought to be involved in the regulation of ssDNA and dsDNA accumulation because only dsDNA was accumulated on R2-infected organs. Disruption of ORF L4 resulted in reduced infections, but the viral DNA was accumulated in infected organs from roots to shoot tips as much as wild type BCTV on Sei-O. In addition, 4 mutants did not produce callus-like tissues on infected organs, suggesting that L4 ORF may play a role in the induction of host cell divisions by virus infection. This result was supported by the patterns of mRNA expression and promoter analysis of the cell cycle marker gene, cycl, on Arabidopsis. cycl mRNA was accumulated on symptomatic organs by wild type BCTV infections but not by L4 mutant. We conclude that the BCTV L4 ORF is essential for symptom developments, specially callus-like formation on infected organs.

• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.243-247
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• 1996

Phosphoribosylanthranilate transferase (PAT) catalyzes the second step of the tryptophan biosynthetic pathway and is encoded by a single-copy gene that complements all the visible phenotypes of the tryptophan mutant (trp1-100) of Arabidopsis. The trp1-100 is blue fluorescent under UV light becuase it accumulates anthranilate. To obtain a plant with reduced PAT activity, PAT1 genes with several internal deletions in different promoter regions (pHS 101, pHS102, pHS104, pHS105, and pHS107) were induced into trp1-100 via Agrobacterium. Then, homozygous T3 plants were isolated and examined for blue fluorescence. Introduction of the PAT1 gene fusants results in the reversion of fluorescence phenotype except in the case of pHS105. These results prompted us to perform a parallel analysis of anthranilate synthase and PAT interms of the genetic complementation. A plant line carrying pHS105 gene fusant does not completely complement the blue fluorescence but it accumulates less anthranilate than trp1-100. The activity of PAT was reduced in the transgenic mutant as well. The plant carrying these constructs will add to the growing collection of molecular tools for the study of the indolic secondary metabolism.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.542-546
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• 2009

Leaves are the major biomass-producing organs in herbaceous plants and mainly develop during vegetative stage by activities of shoot apical meristem. There is a strong correlation between leaf number and bolting, a characteristic phenotype during the transition to reproductive phase in Arabidopsis thaliana. In order to study interactions between leaf number and bolting, we isolated a Landsberg erecta-derived mutant named multifolial (mfo1) that produces increased number of leaves and bolts at the same time as the wild type. Through positional cloning and allelism test, mfo1 was found to be an allele of a previously reported mutant, altered meristem program1-1 (amp1-1) that is defective in a glutamate carboxypeptidase and bolts earlier than its wild type, Columbia ecotype, with the increased number of leaves. The bolting time differences between mfo1 and amp1, despite the same phenotype of many leaves, suggest the existence of genetic factor(s) differently function in each ecotype in the presence of mfo1/amp1 mutation.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.572-572
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• 2002