Abstract
Senescence is a highly regulated process accompanied by changes in gene expression. While the mRNA levels of most genes decline, the mRNA levels of specific genes (senescence associated genes, SAGs) increase during senescence. Arabidopsis SAG12 (AtSAG12) gene codes for papain-like cysteine protease. The promoter of AtSAG12 is SA-responsive and reported to be useful to delay senescence by expressing cytokinin biosynthesis gene isopentenyltransferase specifically during senescence in several plants including Arabidopsis, lettuce and rice. The physiological role of AtSAG12 is not known; the homozygous atsag12 mutant neither fails to develop senescence-associated vacuoles nor shows any morphological phenotype. Through BLAST search using AtSAG12 amino acid sequences as query, we identified a few putative homologues from rice genome (OsSAGs; Oryza sativa SAGs). OsSAG12-1 is the closest homologue of AtSAG12 with 64% similar amino acid composition. Expression of OsSAG12-1 is induced during senescence and pathogen-induced cell death. To evaluate the possible role of OsSAG12-1 we generated RNAi transgenic lines in Japonica rice cultivar TP309. The transgenic lines developed early senescence at varying levels and showed enhanced cell death when inoculated with bacterial pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv.oryzae. Our results suggest that OsSAG12-1 is a negative regulator of cell death in rice.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Usha Vijayraghavan, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, India, for providing TP309 seeds and Kang Chong, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, for providing pTCK303 vector. This work was supported by the DST-purse, Capacity Build-up and UGC resource network funds to AKN, CSIR fellowship to SS and ICMR fellowship to MKG.
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Corresponding editor: UTPAL NATH
MS received 18 March 2013; accepted 19 April 2013
Corresponding editor: Utpal Nath
[Singh S, Giri MK, Singh PK, Siddiqui A and Nandi AK 2013 Down-regulation of OsSAG12-1 results in enhanced senescence and pathogen-induced cell death in transgenic rice plants. J. Biosci. 38 1–10] DOI 10.1007/s12038-013-9334-7
Supplementary materials pertaining to this article are available on the Journal of Biosciences Website at http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/sep2013/supp/Singh.pdf
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Singh, S., Giri, M.K., Singh, P.K. et al. Down-regulation of OsSAG12-1 results in enhanced senescence and pathogen-induced cell death in transgenic rice plants. J Biosci 38, 583–592 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-013-9334-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-013-9334-7