@article {8519, title = {Epigenetic Signals on Plant Adaptation: A Biotic Stress Perspective.}, journal = {Curr Protein Pept Sci}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Jul 24}, abstract = {

For sessile organisms such as plants, regulatory mechanisms of gene expression are vital, since they remain exposed to climatic and biological threats. Thus, they have to face hazards with instantaneous reorganization of their internal environment. For this purpose, besides the use of transcription factors, the participation of chromatin as an active factor in the regulation of transcription is crucial. Chemical changes in chromatin structure affect the accessibility of the transcriptional machinery and acting in signaling, engaging/inhibiting factors that participate in the transcription processes. Mechanisms in which gene expression undergoes changes without the occurrence of DNA gene mutations in the monomers that make up DNA, are understood as epigenetic phenomena. These include (1) post-translational modifications of histones, which results in stimulation or repression of gene activity and (2) cytosine methylation in the promoter region of individual genes, both preventing access of transcriptional activators as well as signaling the recruitment of repressors. There is evidence that such modifications can pass on to subsequent generations of daughter cells and even generations of individuals. However, reports indicate that they persist only in the presence of a stressor factor (or an inductor of the above-mentioned modifications). In its absence, these modifications weaken or lose heritability, being eliminated in the next few generations. In this review, it is argued how epigenetic signals influence gene regulation, the mechanisms involved and their participation in processes of resistance to biotic stresses, controlling processes of the plant immune system.

}, issn = {1875-5550}, author = {Neto, Jos{\'e} Ribamar Costa Ferreira and da Silva, Manass{\'e}s Daniel and Pandolfi, Valesca and Crovella, Sergio and Benko-Iseppon, Ana Maria and Kido, {\'E}derson Akio} } @article {8517, title = {Plant Elite Squad: First Defense Line and Resistance Genes - Identification, Diversity and Functional Roles.}, journal = {Curr Protein Pept Sci}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Jul 24}, abstract = {

Plants exhibit sensitive mechanisms to respond to environmental stresses, presenting some specific and non-specific reactions when attacked by pathogens, including organisms from different classes and complexity, as viroids, viruses, bacteria, fungi and nematodes. A crucial step to define the fate of the plant facing an invading pathogen is the activation of a compatible Resistance (R) gene, the focus of the present review. Different aspects regarding R-genes and their products are discussed, including pathogen recognition mechanisms, signaling and effects on induced and constitutive defense processes, splicing and post transcriptional mechanisms involved. There are still countless challenges to the complete understanding of the mechanisms involving R-genes in plants, in particular those related to the interactions with other genes of the pathogen and of the host itself, their regulation, acting mechanisms at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels, as well as the influence of other types of stress over their regulation. A magnification of knowledge is expected when considering the novel information from the omics and systems biology.

}, issn = {1875-5550}, author = {Wanderley-Nogueira, Ana Carolina and Bezerra-Neto, Jo{\~a}o Pac{\'\i}fico and Kido, {\'E}derson Akio and de Ara{\'u}jo, Fl{\'a}via Tadeu and Amorim, Lidiane Lindinalva Barbosa and Crovella, Sergio and Benko-Iseppon, Ana Maria} } @article {8518, title = {Plants Defense-related Cyclic Peptides: Diversity, Structure and Applications.}, journal = {Curr Protein Pept Sci}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Jul 24}, abstract = {

Plant growth is prone to several unfavorable factors that may compromise or impair development and survival, including abiotic or biotic stressors. Aiming at defending themselves, plants have developed several strategies to survive and adapt to such adversities. Cyclotides are a family of plant-derived proteins that exhibit a diverse range of biological activities including antimicrobial and insecticidal activities that actively participate in plant defense processes. Three main categories of peptides have been described: (i) Cyclotides (ii) Sunflower Trypsin Inhibitor (SFTI) and (iii) peptides MCoTI-I and II, from Momordica cochinchinensis. They comprise proteins of approximately 30 amino acids, containing a head-to-tail cyclized backbone, with three disulfide bonds configured in a cystine knot topology, therefore bearing greater peptide stability. Given their features and multifunctionality, cyclotides stand out as promising sources for the discovery of new antimicrobial agents. The present review describes cyclotide occurrence, abundance and action in plants, also their diversity and evolution. Considerations regarding their use in the context of biomedical and agronomical sciences uses are also presented.

}, issn = {1875-5550}, author = {Maria, Ana Carolina Wanderley-Nogueira and Bezerra-Neto, Jo{\~a}o Pac{\'\i}fico and Kido, {\'E}derson Akio and de Ara{\'u}jo, Fl{\'a}via Tadeu and Amorim, Lidiane Lindinalva Barbosa and Crovella, Sergio and Benko-Iseppon, Ana Maria} } @article {8515, title = {Snakin: Structure, Roles and Applications of a Plant Antimicrobial Peptide.}, journal = {Curr Protein Pept Sci}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Jun 19}, abstract = {

Snakins are plant antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) of the Snakin/GASA family, formed by three distinct regions: an N-terminal signal peptide; a variable site; and the GASA domain in the C-terminal region composed by twelve conserved cysteine residues that contribute to the biochemical stability of the molecule. These peptides are known to play different roles in response to a variety of biotic (i.e. induced by bacteria, fungi and nematode pathogens) and abiotic (salinity, drought and ROS) stressors, as well as in crosstalk promoted by plant hormones, with emphasis on abscisic and salicylic acid (ABA and SA, respectively). Such properties make snakin/GASA members promising biotechnological sources for potential therapeutic and agricultural applications. However, information regarding their tertiary structure, mode of action and function are not yet completely elucidated. The present review presents aspects of snakin structure, expression, functional studies and perspectives about the potential applications for agricultural and medical purposes.

}, issn = {1875-5550}, author = {Oliveira-Lima, Marx and Benko-Iseppon, Ana Maria and Neto, Jos{\'e} Ribamar Costa Ferreira and Rodr{\'\i}guez-Decuadro, Susana and Kido, {\'E}derson Akio and Crovella, Sergio and Pandolfi, Valesca} } @article {8516, title = {Transcription factors involved in plant resistance to pathogens.}, journal = {Curr Protein Pept Sci}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Jun 19}, abstract = {

Phytopathogenic microorganisms have a significant influence on survival and productivity of several crop plants. Transcription factors (TFs) are important players in the response to biotic stresses, as insect attack and pathogen infection. In face of such adversities many TF families have been previously reported as differentially expressed in plants as a reaction to bacterial, fungal and viral infection. This review highlights recent progresses in understanding the structure, function, signal regulation and interaction of transcription factors with other proteins in response to pathogens. Hence, we focus on three families of transcription factors: ERF, bZIP and WRKY, due to their abundance, importance and the availability of functionally well-characterized members in response to pathogen attack. Their roles and the possibilities related to the use of this knowledge for engineering pathogen resistance in crop plants are also discussed.

}, issn = {1875-5550}, author = {Amorim, Lidiane L B and da Fonseca-Dos-Santos, Romulo and Guida-Santos, Mauro and Crovella, Sergio and Benko-Iseppon, Ana Maria} } @article {1913, title = {New insights in the sugarcane transcriptome responding to drought stress as revealed by superSAGE.}, journal = {ScientificWorldJournal}, volume = {2012}, year = {2012}, month = {2012}, pages = {821062}, abstract = {

In the scope of the present work, four SuperSAGE libraries have been generated, using bulked root tissues from four drought-tolerant accessions as compared with four bulked sensitive genotypes, aiming to generate a panel of differentially expressed stress-responsive genes. Both groups were submitted to 24 hours of water deficit stress. The SuperSAGE libraries produced 8,787,315 tags (26 bp) that, after exclusion of singlets, allowed the identification of 205,975 unitags. Most relevant BlastN matches comprised 567,420 tags, regarding 75,404 unitags with 164,860 different ESTs. To optimize the annotation efficiency, the Gene Ontology (GO) categorization was carried out for 186,191 ESTs (BlastN against Uniprot-SwissProt), permitting the categorization of 118,208 ESTs (63.5\%). In an attempt to elect a group of the best tags to be validated by RTqPCR, the GO categorization of the tag-related ESTs allowed the in silico identification of 213 upregulated unitags responding basically to abiotic stresses, from which 145 presented no hits after BlastN analysis, probably concerning new genes still uncovered in previous studies. The present report analyzes the sugarcane transcriptome under drought stress, using a combination of high-throughput transcriptome profiling by SuperSAGE with the Solexa sequencing technology, allowing the identification of potential target genes during the stress response.

}, keywords = {Droughts, Gene Expression Profiling, Heat-Shock Response, Plant Proteins, Saccharum, Transcriptome}, issn = {1537-744X}, doi = {10.1100/2012/821062}, author = {Kido, {\'E}derson Akio and Ferreira Neto, Jos{\'e} Ribamar Costa and Silva, Roberta Lane de Oliveira and Pandolfi, Valesca and Guimar{\~a}es, Ana Carolina Ribeiro and Veiga, Daniela Truffi and Chabregas, Sabrina Moutinho and Crovella, Sergio and Benko-Iseppon, Ana Maria} } @article {1623, title = {Ethnobotanical bioprospection of candidates for potential antimicrobial drugs from Brazilian plants: state of art and perspectives.}, journal = {Curr Protein Pept Sci}, volume = {11}, year = {2010}, month = {2010 May}, pages = {189-94}, abstract = {

Despite of the high biological diversity and traditional use of medicinal plants in Brazil, no comprehensive ethnobotanic review of plants with potential antimicrobial effects is available. In the present work own field information is aggregated with a literature review, identifying 433 Brazilian plant species potentially useful for identification of antimicrobial peptides. They included mainly woody species, distributed on 100 plant families (93 angiosperms and 7 pteridophytes) and 266 genera, covering all Brazilian regions and ecosystems. Main plant parts and indications for their use are presented and discussed, revealing the high potential that these plants present for the future planning strategies regarding the future development of antimicrobial drugs.

}, keywords = {Anti-Infective Agents, Biodiversity, Brazil, Ethnobotany, Plants}, issn = {1875-5550}, author = {Benko-Iseppon, Ana Maria and Crovella, Sergio} }