Chill-responsive Proteins in Blueberry: Are They Associated with Dormancy or Cold Acclimation?

Abstract

To survive winters, woody perennials of temperate zone must enter into endodormancy. Resuming spring growth requires sufficient exposure to low temperature or chill units (CUs) in winter, referred to as chilling requirement (CR), which also plays a role in the development of freezing tolerance (cold acclimation; CA). Physiological studies on the breaking of dormancy have focused on identifying markers, such as appearance or disappearance of proteins in response to varying degrees of CU accumulation. However, whether these changes are associated with breaking dormancy or CA is not clear. We conducted a study, using greenhouse blueberry (Vaccinium section Cyanococcus) plants, to address this question Three blueberry cultivars (`Bluecrop', `Tifblue', and `Gulfcoast'), having CRs of ≈1200, 600, and 400 CUs, respectively, first were exposed to 4° for long enough to provide CUs equivalent to one-half of their respective CRs. This treatment resulted in CA. Plants were then transferred to 15C for 2 weeks (a treatment which should not negate CU accumulation but did result in deacclimation). Before and after each treatment cold hardiness (using a controlled freezing bath) and dormancy status (observe budbreak after placing shoots in water at 20C for 2 to 3 weeks) of floral buds were determined. Proteins were extracted from buds collected, simultaneously and separated by SDS-PAGE. To determine the association of dehydrin-like proteins with dormancy or CA, electroblots were probed with anti-dehydrin antibody. The relationship of protein and western blots data to cold acclimation and dormancy are presented.