Orthologous genesPm12andPm21from twowild relatives of wheat show evolutionary conservation but divergent powdery mildew resistance

Wheat powdery mildew,caused by Blumeria graminis f.sp.tritici(Bgt),is a devastating disease that threatens wheat production worldwide.Pm12,which originated from Aegilops speltoides,a wild relative of wheat,confers strong resistance to powdery mildew and therefore has potential use in wheat breeding.Using susceptible mutants induced by gamma irradiation,we physically mapped and isolated Pm12 and showed it to be orthologous to Pm21 from Dasypyrum villosum,also a wild relative of wheat.The resistance function of Pm12 was validated via ethyl methanesulfonatemutagenesis,virus-induced gene silencing,and stable genetic transformation.Evolutionary analysis indicates that the Pm12/Pm21 loci in wheat species are relatively conserved but dynamic.Here,we demonstrated that the two orthologous genes,Pm12 and Pm21,possess differential resistance against the same set of Bgt isolates.Overexpression of the coiledcoil domains of both PM12 and PM21 induces cell death in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves.However,their full-length forms display different cell death-inducing activities caused by their distinct intramolecular interactions.Cloning of Pm12 will facilitate its application in wheat breeding programs.This study also gives new insight into two orthologous resistance genes,Pm12 and Pm21,which show different race specificities and intramolecular interaction patterns.

NK2 homeobox gene cluster: Functions and roles in human diseases

NK2 genes (NKX2 gene cluster in humans) encode for homeodomain-containing transcription factors that are conserved along the phylogeny. According to the most detailed classifications, vertebrate NKX2 genes are classified into two distinct families, NK2.1 and NK2.2 . The former is constituted by NKX2-1 and NKX2-4 genes, which are homologous to the Drosophila scro gene;the latter includes NKX2-2 and NKX2-8 genes, which are homologous to the Drosophila vnd gene. Conservation of these genes is not only related to molecular structure and expression, but also to biological functions. In Drosophila and vertebrates, NK2 genes share roles in the development of ventral regions of the central nervous system. In vertebrates, NKX2 genes have a relevant role in the development of several other organs such as the thyroid, lung, and pancreas. Loss-of-function mutations in NKX2-1 and NKX2-2 are the monogenic cause of the brain-lung-thyroid syndrome and neonatal diabetes, respectively. Alterations in NKX2-4 and NKX2-8 genes may play a role in multifactorial diseases, autism spectrum disorder, and neural tube defects, respectively. NKX2-1 , NKX2-2 , and NKX2-8 are expressed in various cancer types as either oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. Several data indicate that evaluation of their expression in tumors has diagnostic and/or prognostic value.

Paralog-divergent Features May Help Reduce Off-target Effects of Drugs:Hints from Glucagon Subfamily Analysis

Side effects from targeted drugs remain a serious conccrn. One reason is the nonselective binding of a drug to unintended proteins such as its paralogs, which arc highly homologous in sequences and have similar structures and drug-binding pockets. To identify targctablc differences between paralogs, we analyzed two types （type-I and type-ll） of functional divergence between two paralogs in the known target protein receptor family G-protein coupled receptors （GPCRs） at the amino acid level. Paralogous protein receptors in glucagon-like subfamily, glucagon receptor （GCGR） and glucagon-like peptide-I receptor （GLP-I R）, exhibit divergence in ligands and are clinically validated drug targets for type 2 diabetes. Our data showed that type-ll alnino acids were significantly enriched in the binding sites of antagonist MK-0893 to GCGR. which had a radical shift in physicochemical properties between GCGR and GLP-1R. We also examined the role of type-I amino acids between GCGR and GLP-IR. The divergent features between GCGR and GLP-I R paralogs may be helpful in their discrimination, thus enabling the identification of binding sites to reduce undesirable side effects and increase the target specificity of drugs.

G protein controls stress readiness by modulating transcriptional and metabolic homeostasis in Arabidopsis thaliana and Marchantia polymorpha

The core G protein signaling module,which consists of Gαand extra-large Gα(XLG)subunits coupled with the Gβγdimer,is a master regulator of various stress responses.In this study,we compared the basal and salt stress-induced transcriptomic,metabolomic and phenotypic profiles in Gα,Gβ,and XLG-null mutants of two plant species,Arabidopsis thaliana and Marchantia polymorpha,and showed that G protein mediates the shift of transcriptional and metabolic homeostasis to stress readiness status.We demonstrated that such stress readiness serves as an intrinsic protection mechanism against further stressors through enhancing the phenylpropanoid pathway and abscisic acid responses.Furthermore,WRKY transcription factors were identified as key intermediates of G protein-mediated homeostatic shifts.Statistical and mathematical model comparisons between A.thaliana and M.polymorpha revealed evolutionary conservation of transcriptional and metabolic networks over land plant evolution,whereas divergence has occurred in the function of plant-specific atypical XLG subunit.Taken together,our results indicate that the shifts in transcriptional and metabolic homeostasis at least partially act as the mechanisms of G protein-coupled stress responses that are conserved between two distantly related plants.