Prions May Be Involved In Flowering Time Of Plant: New Study

Overview

• Post By : Kumar Jeetendra


• Source: Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research


• Date: 04 May,2016

Researcher from Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research defines a type of protein responsible for flowering time in plant may be Prions and is first time when Prions has been identified in plants.

Till now Prions are mainly famous for certain disease like Scrapie Disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy known as mad cow disease and till now prions are only known for negative effects, researcher from Whitehead institute now detected prions are working like memory in plants and help them to against environmental stresses. Lindquist's lab has identified such prions in yeast, including several that are able to regulate transcription, translation, and RNA processing.

The concern research recently appears in journal PNAS, as per research theme and experiment scientists detected protein from Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of the mustard plant, and identified 474 that contain prion-like domains.

According to researcher,

"We weren't surprised that a plant could have a prion. It would be more surprising if only yeast and mammals have prions and nothing else does," says Can Kayatekin, a postdoctoral researcher who is an author of the PNAS paper. "While more work needs to be done to show these proteins do indeed function as prions in plants, clearly it is a very real possibility. We hope this work can motivate scientists to be the lookout for prions in plants."

Note: The above story is for information purposes for more information go through original story source.

Story source: Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

Journal References:

Sohini Chakrabortee, Can Kayatekin, Greg A. Newby, Marc L. Mendillo, Alex Lancaster, Susan Lindquist. Luminidependens (LD) is an Arabidopsis protein with prion behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016; 201604478 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1604478113