News from the plant NOS world

Dear Readers!

Now, I am writing about a new observation regarding the plant nitric oxide synthase (NOS).

The biosynthesis is a very exciting field of NO research since we have quite few information about it in higher plants.

Now, you can read the most recent development in this field, the expression of Ostreoccoccus tauri NOS gene in Arabidopsis.

Here, you can see this globally abundant, single-celled green algae:

A kép forrása

Here you can find the full paper:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tpj.12852/abstract;jsessionid=BE8378A8E0D147DA1BE50787164CC753.f02t01

The main findings are the followings:

• Generation of transgenic Arabidopsis plants expressing OtNOS
• Expression of OtNOS in Arabidopsis results in increased NO concentration. Tetrahydrofolate is an efficient cofactor of OtNOS.
• Transgenic plants expressing OtNOS display enhanced germination rates 
• OtNOS expression improves shoot and root development under NaCl stress and ABA treatments 
• Plants expressing OtNOS exhibit increased tolerance to oxidative stress 
• OtNOS expression increases the stomatal index and improves drought tolerance  

Congratulations, Prof. Lamattina to this very impressive work! :)

Our recently accepted paper in Plant Growth Regulation

Dear Readers!

Let me write some words about the paper, which has been accepted recently.

Our objective was Arabidopsis, and the goal of this study was  to characterize the NO, ROS production and copper sensitivity of nia1nia2noa1-2 mutant and to draw conclusions about the involvement of NO in Cu stress responses and its interactions with ROS.

This mutant contains very low NO levels compared to the wild-type (WT), since both major enzymatic pathways of NO production is deficient in it.

The mutant is semi-dwarf, which suggests the basic role of NO in regulation of plant development.

In the Figure below, you can see 7-days-old seedlings of the WT (a) and the mutant (c). The effect of copper can be seen in b(=WT) and d(=mutant).

Our main findings are the followings:

-nia1nia2noa1-2 is copper sensitive, it contains high ROS levels

-nitric oxide contributes to copper tolerance and its deficiency favours for ROS production.

Thank You for reading this blog!

Welcome!

Dear Readers!

This is the first blog entry, welcome Everybody! :)

Please, let us introduce ourselves!

Our research group (RNS Signalling Group) works at the Department of Plant Biology, University of Szeged, in Hungary. We are dealing with nitric oxide (NO) and related molecules, the so called reactive nitrogen species (RNS).

Our research focuses on morphological responses triggered by excesses of different elements (e.g. copper, zinc, selenium, lead) with a special emphasis on the root system. Moreover, one of our main topics is the RNS-dependent tyrosin nitration as an important posttranslational modification (PTM).

According to our plan, we want to publish writings about the group life, our publications, news, conference attendances etc.

Here you can see the first version of our group logo :) Later, we will improve it.

Hopefully, You will follow our blog and will find it interesting.
This is for now, have a nice day :)