Abstract
Cycloastragenol (CAG) is a triterpenoid saponin compound that is synthesized by Astragalus species. CAG has many bioactivity, including telomerase activation, telomere elongation, anti-inflammatory, and anti-oxidative properties. While CAG activates human telomerase, no study has been conducted to investigate its effect on the plant telomere/telomerase system. In this study, in order to test whether CAG has an impact on plants, 1 µM and 10 µM CAG were tested on all in vitro grown plant and callus tissues of a model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Results revealed that CAG caused an increase in the transcript levels of TER1, CTC1, TRB1, POT1a, TAC1, BT2 which act as positive regulators on the telomere/telomerase system together with the TERT gene encoding the catalytic subunit of telomerase especially calli tissues in A. thaliana. While CAG administration resulted in increase in height, and no remarkable effect on callus growth index was observed. Furthermore, no significant change in cell proliferation was observed in plant root cells due to the CAG treatment. The gene expression results suggest that CAG induced transcription of positive regulators of telomere/telomerase system and it might have a role in plants as well as in humans.
Key message
Cycloastragenol (CAG) has many bioactivity, including telomerase activation, telomere elongation. Our results revealed that CAG caused an increase in the transcript levels of the genes which are act as positive regulators on the telomere/telomerase system together with the TERT gene in A. thaliana.
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Abbreviations
- CAG:
-
Cycloastragenol
- TER1:
-
Telomerase RNA subunit 1
- CTC1:
-
CST telomere replication complex component 1
- TRB1:
-
Telomere repeat-binding factor 1
- POT1a:
-
Protection of telomerase 1
- TAC1:
-
Telomerase activator 1
- BT2:
-
BTB and TAZ domain protein 2
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This study was financially supported by the Research Fund of the Istanbul University (Project code FYL-2018-31512).
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MC performed the experiments, data collection and writing the original draft of the manuscript; MC and UYK conducted the cell viability analysis; OC involved in study design and data analysis; NTK, supervised the project, study design, data analysis and revised the original draft. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Communicated by Manoj Prasad.
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Ceylan, M., Kına, Ü.Y., Çakır, Ö. et al. Assessing the influence of cycloastragenol on telomere/telomerase system of Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 146, 83–95 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-021-02047-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-021-02047-w