RESUMO
Aquaporins have important roles in various physiological processes in plants, including growth, development and adaptation to stress. In this study, a gene encoding a root-specific tonoplast intrinsic aquaporin (TIP) from Eucalyptus grandis (named EgTIP2) was investigated. The root-specific expression of EgTIP2 was validated over a panel of five eucalyptus organ/tissues. In eucalyptus roots, EgTIP2 expression was significantly induced by osmotic stress imposed by PEG treatment. Histochemical analysis of transgenic tobacco lines (Nicotiana tabacum SR1) harboring an EgTIP2 promoter:GUS reporter cassette revealed major GUS staining in the vasculature and in root tips. Consistent with its osmotic-stress inducible expression in eucalyptus, EgTIP2 promoter activity was up-regulated by mannitol treatment, but was down-regulated by abscisic acid. Taken together, these results suggest that EgTIP2 might be involved in eucalyptus response to drought. Additional searches in the eucalyptus genome revealed the presence of four additional putative TIP coding genes, which could be individually assigned to the classical TIP1-5 groups.
Assuntos
Adaptação Fisiológica , Aquaporinas/genética , Eucalyptus/genética , Regulação da Expressão Gênica de Plantas , Estresse Fisiológico , Aquaporinas/metabolismo , Sequência de Bases , Eucalyptus/citologia , Eucalyptus/fisiologia , Genes Reporter , Proteínas de Membrana/genética , Proteínas de Membrana/metabolismo , Dados de Sequência Molecular , Especificidade de Órgãos , Pressão Osmótica , Filogenia , Proteínas de Plantas/genética , Proteínas de Plantas/metabolismo , Raízes de Plantas/citologia , Raízes de Plantas/genética , Raízes de Plantas/fisiologia , Plantas Geneticamente Modificadas , Regiões Promotoras Genéticas/genética , Análise de Sequência de DNA , Nicotiana/genética , Nicotiana/fisiologiaRESUMO
The expressed sequence tags (ESTs) produced in the Forests project provide an invaluable opportunity to assess the Eucalyptus transcriptome. Besides providing information on the different proteins produced by this plant, it is possible to infer gene expression profiles because non-normalized cDNA libraries were used. The EST frequency from any gene is correlated to the transcript levels in the tissues from which the cDNA libraries were constructed. The goal of this work was to identify Eucalyptus genes that showed either differential expression pattern or were ubiquitously expressed in the tissues sampled in the Forests project. Six robust statistical tests and very restrictive rules were applied to gain confidence in the in silico data aiming to avoid false positives. Several genes with interesting expression profiles were identified and some of them were validated by RT-PCR