Effects of early cold stress on gene expression in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Genomics. 2020 Mar;112(2):1128-1138. doi: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2019.06.027. Epub 2019 Jun 25.

Abstract

Cold stress imposes a great impact on the growth of nearly all photosynthetic organisms, including Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (C. reinhardtii). Despite prior studies on the mechanism of stress acclimation in plants, little has been done on the early events of cold sensing in C. reinhardtii. Here, we used C. reinhardtii as a model to study early events of cold signal transduction. By analyzing transcriptomic changes of C. reinhardtii exposed to cold, we found that 3471 genes were differentially expressed after 1 h of cold exposure. These genes were associated with a wide range of biological events and processes such as protein synthesis, cell cycle and protein kinase-based phosphorylation. Besides, the promoter of one gene (named as crAP2) which belongs to AP2/EREBP family and was significantly induced by cold was cloned, and functional analysis was conducted using GUS activity analysis through Agrobacterium-mediated transient assay in tobacco leaves.

Keywords: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii; Cold stress; Early signaling events; Expression pattern; Promoter.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Chlamydomonas reinhardtii / genetics*
  • Chlamydomonas reinhardtii / metabolism
  • Cold-Shock Response*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant*
  • Plant Proteins / genetics
  • Plant Proteins / metabolism
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic
  • Protein Kinases / genetics
  • Protein Kinases / metabolism

Substances

  • Plant Proteins
  • Protein Kinases