Enlighten Theses

Source: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/4110/ Parent: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/view/subjects/QH.html

• Skip to main content
• Accessibility information

Site navigation

• Study
• Research
• About us
• Student life
• Alumni
• Support us
• Contact

Site tools

A-Z Lists

• Subjects A-Z
• Staff A-Z

• Academic units A-Z

• Home

• Enlighten
• Theses

Enlighten Theses

• About
• Latest Additions
• Search
• Browse
• Browse by Year
• Browse by Subject
• Browse by College/School
• Browse by Author
• Browse by Funder
• ORCID
• My Thesis
• Login (Library staff only)

In this section

Genome-wide transcriptional changes and chromatin modifications associated with plant stress memory

Sani, Emanuela (2013) Genome-wide transcriptional changes and chromatin modifications associated with plant stress memory. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Full text available as:

Printed Thesis Information: https://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b2983187

Abstract

As sessile organisms, plants had to develop various biochemical and physiological \ mechanisms to respond and adapt to abiotic stress conditions such as salt and drought and \ thus acquire stress tolerance. A particular interesting mechanism is the so called “priming \ effect”: an application of a mild short stress to plants at an early stage of development \ appears to enable them to cope better when stressed again at mature stage. However, the \ molecular effects of salt priming have not been systematically quantified and as a \ consequence the molecular basis of priming remains unknown. \ In this study an experimental procedure was established that allowed to test whether salt \ priming of young Arabidopsis thaliana plants had an effect on plants exposed to more severe \ salt stress at a later stage of development. \ To quantify how primed and non-primed plants responded to the second salt stress, global \ changes in their transcriptional expression profiles were monitored using Affymetrix \ GeneChip ATH1 microarray. Results showed that both primed and non-primed plants \ responded to the salt treatment modulating the same set of known stress responsive genes. \ However, primed plants differentially regulated a smaller set of genes. Furthermore, the vast \ majority of the stress responsive genes showed a weaker response in primed than in nonprimed plants. These results suggested that primed plants channelled the stress response \ using only selected genes. \ The next question addressed was how primed plants could “remember” the priming \ treatment after a period of extensive growth. Several studies had indicated that \ environmental stress induces changes in the chromatin structure thereby modifying the \ accessibility of the DNA for transcription factors and other regulatory proteins. This suggested \ a link between epigenetic modification and exposure of plants to stressful conditions, where \ the chromatin status might act as an epigenetic mark that could be maintained during plant \ growth and development. To investigate this hypothesis I carried out a comparative analysis \ of the epigenetic landscapes of primed and non-primed plants combining Chromatin \ Immuno-Precipitation with Illumina sequencing (ChIP-Seq). \ Genome-wide profiles of H3K4me2, H3K4me3, H3K9me2 and H3K27me3 were generated for \ roots and shoots of plants harvested immediately after the priming treatment. Roots of \ primed plants showed indeed numerous differences in their epigenetic profiles compared to \ non-primed roots, in particular at the level of H3K27me3. Therefore, I carried out an \ additional ChIP-Seq experiment before the application of the second stress to test if the \ priming induced changes in H3K27me3 were maintained over this period of extensive growth. \ Results showed that several epigenetic differences caused by priming were still maintained. \ Finally, to elucidate the relationship between epigenetic modifications and transcriptional \ responses the ChIP-Seq profiles were coupled with genome wide transcript profiles obtained \ by RNA-seq. Results shown that in the non-steady state there was no clear correlation \ between the differences detected at the transcriptional and at the epigenetic level. The \ results identified H3K27me3 as a potential mark for salt stress memory and they call for \ future studies extending both temporal and spatial resolution of epigenetic and \ transcriptional changes after salt priming.

Actions (login required)

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Tools

Tools

Tools

RDF+XML RDF+N-Triples JSON RefWorks Dublin Core Atom Simple Metadata Refer METS HTML Citation ASCII Citation OpenURL ContextObject EndNote OpenURL ContextObject in Span MODS MPEG-21 DIDL EP3 XML Data Cite XML Reference Manager RDF+N3 Multiline CSV

\

Back to top

Library

• Contact us

The University of Glasgow is a registered Scottish charity: Registration Number SC004401