Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Molecular cloning and phylogenetic analysis of cereal type II metacaspase cDNA from wheat

  • Published:
Biologia Plantarum

Abstract

A new cereal type II metacaspase full-length cDNA from wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) leaves, TaeMCAII, was for the first time successfully amplified and sequenced. The full-length sequence of the TaeMCAII cDNA of 1 551 bp contains a 1 218 bp open reading frame. The deduced protein encoded by the TaeMCAII cDNA consists of 405 amino acids with a calculated molecular mass of 44 kDa and an isoelectric point of 5.29. In response to wounding or heat shock, a similar sequence of ultrastructural events including the tonoplast rupture, chromatin condensation, degradation of chloroplasts and disappearance of cytoplasm and organelles were observed using transmission electron microscopy. As the observed changes in TaeMCAII mRNA level did not occur to be statistically significant wounding-induced programmed cell death (PCD) seems to be metacaspase-independent pathway. Interestingly, in PCD caused by a heat-shock treatment, the level of TaeMCAII mRNA remained unaltered until 48 h after the stress what suggests that TaeMCAII participates in later stages of PCD triggered by heat-shock. Phylogenetic analysis enabled to classify TaeMCAII as a type II metacaspase. Finally, homology modelling of the putative three-dimensional structure of the TaeMCAII protein and a topology analysis of its probable active site were performed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Abbreviations

CASP:

caspase

EST:

expressed sequence tags

FM:

Fitch-Margoliash clustering

HR:

hypersensitive response

JTT:

Jones-Taylor-Thornton modelling

MSA:

multisequence alignment

ORF:

open reading frame

PCD:

programmed cell death

PDB:

Protein DataBank

RACE:

rapid amplification of cDNA ends

TaeMCAII:

Triticum aestivum type II metacaspase

TEM:

transmission electron microscopy

References

  • Baarlen, P., Woltering, E.J., Staats, M., Van Kan, J.A.L.: Histochemical and genetic analysis of host and non-host interactions of Arabidopsis with three Botrytis species: an important role for cell death control. — Mol. Plant. Pathol. 8: 41–54, 2007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belenghi, B., Romero-Puertas, M.C., Vercammen, D., Brackenier, A., Inze, D., Delledonne, M., Van Breusegem, F.: Metacaspase activity of Arabidopsis thaliana is regulated by S-nitrosylation of a critical cysteine residue. — J. biol. Chem. 282: 1352–1358, 2007.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bonneau, L., Ge, Y., Drury, G.E., Gallois, P.: What happened to plant caspases? — J. exp. Bot. 59: 491–499, 2008.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bozhkov, P.V., Suarez, M.F., Filonova, L.H., Daniel, G., Zamyatnin, A.A., Rodriguez-Nieto, S., Zhivotovsky, B., Smertenko, A.: Cysteine protease mcII-Pa executes programmed cell death during plant embryogenesis. — Plant. Biol. 102: 14463–14468, 2005.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Castillo-Olamendi, L., Bravo-Garcia, A., Moran, J., Rocha-Sosa, M., Porta, H.: AtMCP1b, a chloroplast-localised metacaspase, is induced in vascular tissue after wounding or pathogen infection. — Func. Plant Biol. 34: 1061–1071, 2007.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Chomczyński, P., Sacchi, N.: Single-step method of total RNA isolation by a single extraction with an acid guanidinium thiocyanate-phenol-chloroform extraction. — Anal. Biochem. 162: 156–159, 1987.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Golinowski, W., Grundler, F.M.W., Sobczak, M.: Changes in the structure of Arabidopsis thaliana during female development of the plant-parasitic nematode Heterodera schachtii. — Protoplasma 194: 103–116, 1996.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hao, L., Goodwin, P.H., Hsiang, T.: Expression of a metacaspase gene of Nicotiana bentamiana after inoculation with Colletotrichum destructivum or Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato, and the effect of silencing the gene on the host response. — Plant. Cell Rep. 26: 1879–1888, 2007.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • He, R., Drury, G.E., Rotari, V.I., Gordon, A., Willer, M., Farzaneh, T., Woltering, E.J., Gallois, P.: Metacaspase-8 modulates programmed cell death induced by UV and H2O2 in Arabidopsis. — J. biol. Chem. 283: 774–783, 2008.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hoeberichts, F.A., Have, A., Woltering, E.: A tomato metacaspase gene is upregulated during programmed cell death in Botrytis cinerea-infected leaves. — Planta 217: 517–522, 2003.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, M.P., Pincus, D.L., Rapp, C.S., Day, T.J.F., Honig, B., Shaw, D.E., Friesner, R.A.: A hierarchical approach to all-atom loop prediction. — Proteins 55: 351–367, 2004.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Letunic, I., Bork, P.: Interactive Tree Of Life (iTOL): An online tool for phylogenetic tree display and annotation. — Bioinformatics 23: 127–128, 2007.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Y., Schiff, M., Czymmek, K., Talloczy, Z., Levine, B., Dinesh-Kumar, S.P.: Autophagy regulates programmed cell death during the plant innate immune response. — Cell 121: 567–577, 2005.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pawlowski, M., Gajda, M.J., Maślak, R., Bujnicki, J.M.: MetaMQAP: a meta-server for the quality assessment of protein models. — BMC Bioinformatics 29: 9–403, 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rychlewski, L., Jaroszewski, L., Li, W., Godzik, A.: Comparison of sequence profiles. Strategies for structural predictions using sequence information. — Protein Sci. 9: 232–241, 2000.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sobczak, M., Grundler, F.M.W., Golinowski, W.: Changes in the structure of Arabidopsis thaliana roots induced during development of males of the plant parasitic nematode Heterodera schachtii. — Eur. J. Plant. Pathol. 103: 113–124, 1997.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uren, A.G., O’Rourke, K., Aravind, L., Pisabarro, M.T., Seshagiri, S., Koonin, E.V., Dixit, V.M.: Identification of paracaspases and metacaspases: two ancient families of caspase-like proteins, one of which plays a key role in MALT lymphoma. — Mol. Cell 6: 961–967, 2000.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Vercammen, D., Belenghi, B., Van de Cotte, B., Beunens, T., Gavigan, J.A., De Rycke, R., Brackenier, A., Inze, D., Harris, J.L., Van Breusegem, F.: Serpin 1 of Arabidopsis thaliana is a suicide inhibitor for metacaspase 9. — J. mol. Biol. 364: 625–636, 2006.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Vercammen, D., Van de Cotte, B., De Jaeger, G., Eeckhout, D., Casteels, P., Vanepoele, K., Vandenberghe, I., Van Beeumen, J., Inze, D., Van Breusegem, F.: Type II metacaspases Atmc4 and Atmc9 of Arabidopsis thaliana cleave substrates after arginine and lysine. — J. biol. Chem. 279: 45329–45336, 2004.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Watanabe, N., Lam, E.: Recent advance in the study of caspaselike proteases and Bax inhibitor-1 in plants: their possible roles as regulator of programmed cell death. — Mol. Plant Pathol. 5: 65–70, 2004.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhu, K., Shirts, M.R., Friesner, R.A.: Improved methods for side chain and loop predictions via the protein local optimization program: variable dielectric model for implicitly improving the treatment of polarization effects. — J. Chem. Theory Comput. 3: 2108–2119, 2007.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant from Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education No. N303 048837.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 159 Nowoursynowska, PL-02776, Warsaw, Poland

    E. Piszczek

  2. Department of Experimental Design and Bioinformatics, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 159 Nowoursynowska, PL-02776, Warsaw, Poland

    M. Dudkiewicz

  3. Department of Botany, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 159 Nowoursynowska, PL-02776, Warsaw, Poland

    M. Sobczak

Authors
  1. E. Piszczek
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. M. Dudkiewicz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. M. Sobczak
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to E. Piszczek.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Piszczek, E., Dudkiewicz, M. & Sobczak, M. Molecular cloning and phylogenetic analysis of cereal type II metacaspase cDNA from wheat. Biol Plant 55, 614–624 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10535-011-0159-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10535-011-0159-7

Additional key words

Search

Navigation