Riverside, California
May 16, 2006
 In
response to cold, plants trigger a cascade of genetic
reactions that allow them to survive.
University of California,
Riverside Professor of Plant Cell Biology
Jian-Kang Zhu has described how a little-known
biochemical reaction regulates that genetic cascade.
Zhu’s findings were published in the May 15 online
version of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in a
paper titled
The Negative Regulator of Plant Cold Responses, HOS1
is a RING E3 Ligase That Mediates the Ubiquitation and
Degredation of ICE1. Zhu co-authored the paper
with UCR colleagues Chun Hai Dong and Manu Agarwal; and
Yiyue Zhang and Qi Xie, from the Institute of Genetics
and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in
Beijing.
This negative regulator, known as high expression of
osmotically responsive gene 1 (HOS1), acts essentially
as a biochemical gate that cuts off the plant’s cold
protection, Zhu said. The HOS1 gene product interacts
with another gene product known as ICE1 that kicks off
the genetic cascade that provides the plant’s cold
protection proteins, according to the paper. The
interaction worked both in the test tube and in the live
plant.
“The better we understand this molecular mechanism, the
better we can control the process of increasing the
plant’s freezing tolerance without causing negative
impacts,” Zhu said. “This process should apply to all
plants and can help us better use crops of subtropical
origin such as corn, rice, avocadoes and strawberries.”
Zhu said the discovery of how HOS1 acts on plants should
help his overall research efforts into how plants
respond to environmental stresses such as cold, soil
salinity and drought.
“From a genetic and molecular standpoint, these
responses are all related,” Zhu said. “Some of the same
genes are involved in all of these responses and
understanding how they work can help us develop crops
that can better withstand these conditions.”
Zhu said he plans on continuing his research on how HOS1
and ICE1 recognize each other and work together to help
plants deal with cold weather conditions. This line of
inquiry should better explain how plant cells initially
respond to cold and other adverse conditions.
Related link:
The College of
Natural and Agricultural Sciences at UCR
The University of California, Riverside is a major research
institution. Key areas of research include nanotechnology,
health science, genomics, environmental studies, digital
arts and sustainable growth and development. With a current
undergraduate and graduate enrollment of more than 16,600,
the campus is projected to grow to 21,000 students by 2010.
Located in the heart of Inland Southern California, the
nearly 1,200-acre, park-like campus is at the center of the
region's economic development.
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