Physcomitrella patens DNA methyltransferase 2 is required for recovery from salt and osmotic stress

DNA methyltransferase 2 (DNMT2) unlike other members of the cytosine DNA methyltransferase gene family has dual substrate specificity and it methylates cytosines in both the DNA and transfer RNA (tRNA). Its role in plants, however, has remained obscure to date. In this study, we demonstrate that DNM...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The FEBS journal 2016-02, Vol.283 (3), p.556-570
Main Authors: Arya, Deepshikha, Kapoor, Sanjay, Kapoor, Meenu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
abiotic stress
Amino Acid Sequence
biogenesis
Bryopsida - drug effects
Bryopsida - enzymology
Bryopsida - growth & development
culture media
cytosine
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
DNA (Cytosine-5-)-Methyltransferases - genetics
DNA (Cytosine-5-)-Methyltransferases - metabolism
DNMT2
gene targeting
genes
heat shock proteins
Mannitol - pharmacology
methyltransferase
methyltransferases
Molecular Sequence Data
moss
mutants
Mutation
Osmosis
Osmotic Pressure - drug effects
osmotic stress
Phylogeny
Physcomitrella patens
salt tolerance
Sequence Alignment
Sodium Chloride - pharmacology
stress tolerance
substrate specificity
transfer DNA
Transfer RNA
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Summary:DNA methyltransferase 2 (DNMT2) unlike other members of the cytosine DNA methyltransferase gene family has dual substrate specificity and it methylates cytosines in both the DNA and transfer RNA (tRNA). Its role in plants, however, has remained obscure to date. In this study, we demonstrate that DNMT2 from Physcomitrella patens accumulates in a temporal manner under salt and osmotic stress showing maximum accumulation during recovery, i.e. 24 h after plants are transferred to normal growth medium. Therefore, to study its role in stress tolerance, we generated PpDNMT2 targeted knockout plants (ppdnmt2ko). Mutant plants show increased sensitivity to salt and osmotic stress and are unable to recover even after 21 days of growth on optimal growth media. ppdnmt2ko, however, accumulate normal levels of dehydrin‐like and small heat shock protein encoding transcripts under stress but show dramatic reduction in levels of tRNAᴬ ˢᵖ‐ ᴳᵁC. The levels of tRNAᴬ ˢᵖ‐ ᴳᵁC, in contrast, increase ~ 25–30‐fold in ppdnmt2ko under non‐stress conditions and > 1200‐fold in wild‐type plants under stress. The role of PpDNMT2 in modulating biogenesis/stability of tRNAᴬ ˢᵖ‐ ᴳᵁC under salt and osmotic stress is discussed in the light of these observations.
ISSN:1742-464X
1742-4658
DOI:10.1111/febs.13611