Publication of the month October 2011
Date: November 2011
Location: A CBSG publication in Nature
Plants can survive short periods of water submergence and low oxygen availability (hypoxia). They have evolved a mechanism that sense these conditions and response by activating gene expression for hypoxia acclimation. Researchers from Germany, Italy and our colleagues from the Plant Ecophysiology Institute from Utrecht University headed by Rens Voesenek published this discovery in a recent Nature issue. They found that the Arabidopsis ERF transcription factor RAP2.12 is translocated from the plasma membrane to the nucleus upon hypoxia, where it activates anaerobic gene expression. After re-oxygenation, the N-terminal part if RAP2.12 is recognized by the proteolytic breakdown pathway and is degraded. This sensing mechanism has impact on the tolerance of crops that grow under submerging conditions, such as rice.
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