RNA Chaperone Function of a Universal Stress Protein in Arabidopsis Confers Enhanced Cold Stress Tolerance in Plants.

ABSTRACT: The physiological function of Arabidopsis thaliana universal stress protein (AtUSP) in plant has remained unclear. Thus, we report here the functional role of the Arabidopsis universal stress protein, AtUSP (At3g53990). To determine how AtUSP affects physiological responses towards cold stress, AtUSP overexpression (AtUSP OE) and T-DNA insertion knock-out (atusp, SALK_146059) mutant lines were used. The results indicated that AtUSP OE enhanced plant tolerance to cold stress, whereas atusp did not. AtUSP is localized in the nucleus and cytoplasm, and cold stress significantly affects RNA metabolism such as by misfolding and secondary structure changes of RNA. Therefore, we investigated the relationship of AtUSP with RNA metabolism. We found that AtUSP can bind nucleic a

SUBMITTER: Melencion SMB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5751149 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature