Insights into the adaptive response of Arabidopsis thaliana to prolonged thermal stress by ribosomal profiling and RNA-Seq.

Radoslaw Lukoszek,Peter Feist,Zoya Ignatova

doi:10.1186/s12870-016-0915-0

Radoslaw Lukoszek, Peter Feist + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-016-0915-0

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Abstract

BackgroundEnvironmental stress puts organisms at risk and requires specific stress-tailored responses to maximize survival. Long-term exposure to stress necessitates a global reprogramming of the cellular activities at different levels of gene expression.ResultsHere, we use ribosome profiling and RNA sequencing to globally profile the adaptive response of Arabidopsis thaliana to prolonged heat stress. To adapt to long heat exposure, the expression of many genes is modulated in a coordinated manner at a transcriptional and translational level. However, a significant group of genes opposes this trend and shows mainly translational regulation. Different secondary structure elements are likely candidates to play a role in regulating translation of those genes.ConclusionsOur data also uncover on how the subunit stoichiometry of multimeric protein complexes in plastids is maintained upon heat exposure.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-016-0915-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Environmental stress puts organisms at risk and requires specific stress-tailored responses to maximize survival
ribosome-protected fragments (RPF) and mRNA reads were still wellcorrelated overall, albeit slightly reduced compared to the control growth conditions, and suggested that a significant translation activity was presented by the heatexposed plants (Additional file 1d)
For the majority of genes that are translationally active under heat, we found a positive linear log-log correlation with changes in their mRNA reads (Additional file 1d) suggesting that the adaptive response is shaped in a coordinated manner between transcription and translation

Summary

Introduction

Environmental stress puts organisms at risk and requires specific stress-tailored responses to maximize survival. Long-term exposure to stress necessitates a global reprogramming of the cellular activities at different levels of gene expression. Environmental stress or suboptimal growth conditions reduce cell viability and require an immediate but specific response in order to maximize the survival of the whole organism. Plants are constantly exposed to changing environmental conditions and are under threat of severe adverse conditions. Heat exposure changes membrane fluidity [1, 2] and protein stability [3, 4] which alter photosynthesis [5] and central metabolic activities [6]. Long heat exposure triggers epigenetic changes, some of which are conserved between yeast and plants

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