indole-3-acetonitrile and indoleacetic-acid

The plant hormone indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) is one of the main signals playing a role in the communication between host and endophytes. Endophytes can synthesize IAA de novo to influence the IAA homeostasis in plants. Although much is known about IAA biosynthesis in microorganisms, there is still less known about the pathway by which IAA is synthesized in fungal endophytes. The aim of this study is to examine a possible IAA biosynthesis pathway in

Topics: Arabidopsis; Arabidopsis Proteins; Ascomycota; Benzimidazoles; Culture Media, Conditioned; Endophytes; Genome, Fungal; Glycolates; Host Adaptation; Host Specificity; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Metabolic Networks and Pathways; Phthalimides; Plant Roots; Triazoles; Tryptophan

Plant hormones have various functions in plants and play crucial roles in all developmental and differentiation stages. Auxins constitute one of the most important groups with the major representative indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). A halogenated derivate of IAA, 4-chloro-indole-3-acetic acid (4-Cl-IAA), has previously been identified in

Topics: Amino Acids; Arabidopsis; Arabidopsis Proteins; Fabaceae; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Halogenation; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Pisum sativum; Plant Growth Regulators; Plant Roots; Tryptophan

Fusarium graminearum is a devastating pathogenic fungus causing fusarium head blight (FHB) of wheat. This fungus can produce indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and a very large amount of IAA accumulates in wheat head tissues during the first few days of infection by F. graminearum. Using liquid culture conditions, we have determined that F. graminearum can use tryptamine (TAM) and indole-3-acetonitrile (IAN) as biosynthetic intermediates to produce IAA. It is the first time that F. graminearum is shown to use the l-tryptophan-dependent TAM and IAN pathways rather than the indole-3-acetamide or indole-3-pyruvic acid pathways to produce IAA. Our experiments also showed that exogenous IAA was metabolized by F. graminearum. Exogenous IAA, TAM, and IAN inhibited mycelial growth; IAA and IAN also affected the hyphae branching pattern and delayed macroconidium germination. IAA and TAM had a small positive effect on the production of the mycotoxin 15-ADON while IAN inhibited its production. Our results showed that IAA and biosynthetic intermediates had a significant effect on F. graminearum physiology and suggested a new area of exploration for fungicidal compounds.

Topics: Biosynthetic Pathways; Fusarium; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Mycelium; Plant Growth Regulators; Spores, Fungal; Trichothecenes; Triticum; Tryptamines; Tryptophan

The mycotoxin fumonisin B1 (FB1) causes the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which then leads to programmed cell death (PCD) in Arabidopsis. In the process of studying FB1-induced biosynthesis of glucosinolates, we found that indole glucosinolate (IGS) is involved in attenuating FB1-induced PCD. Treatment with FB1 elevates the expression of genes related to the biosynthesis of camalexin and IGS. Mutants deficient in aliphatic glucosinolate (AGS) or camalexin biosynthesis display similar lesions to Col-0 upon FB1 infiltration; however, the cyp79B2 cyp79B3 double mutant, which lacks induction of both IGS and camalexin, displays more severe lesions. Based on the fact that the classic myrosinase β-thioglucoside glucohydrolase (TGG)-deficient double mutant tgg1 tgg2, rather than atypical myrosinase-deficient mutant pen2-2, is more sensitive to FB1 than Col-0, and the elevated expression of TGG1, but not of PEN2, correlates with the decrease in IGS, we conclude that TGG-dependent IGS hydrolysis is involved in FB1-induced PCD. Indole-3-acetonitrile (IAN) and indole-3-carbinol (I3C), the common derivatives of IGS, were used in feeding experiments, and this rescued the severe cell death phenotype, which is associated with reduced accumulation of ROS as well as increased activity of antioxidant enzymes and ROS-scavenging ability. Despite the involvement of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) in restricting FB1-induced PCD, feeding of IAN and I3C attenuated FB1-induced PCD in the IAA receptor mutant tir1-1 just as in Col-0. Taken together, our results indicate that TGG-catalyzed breakdown products of IGS decrease the accumulation of ROS by their antioxidant behavior, and attenuate FB1 induced PCD in an IAA-independent way.

Topics: Arabidopsis; Arabidopsis Proteins; Cell Death; Cytochrome P-450 Enzyme System; Fumonisins; Glucosinolates; Glycoside Hydrolases; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Mutation; Thiazoles

Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) is a fundamental phytohormone with the ability to control many aspects of plant growth and development. Pseudomonas sp. strain UW4 is a rhizospheric plant growth-promoting bacterium that produces and secretes IAA. While several putative IAA biosynthetic genes have been reported in this bacterium, the pathways leading to the production of IAA in strain UW4 are unclear. Here, the presence of the indole-3-acetamide (IAM) and indole-3-acetaldoxime/indole-3-acetonitrile (IAOx/IAN) pathways of IAA biosynthesis is described, and the specific role of two of the enzymes (nitrilase and nitrile hydratase) that mediate these pathways is assessed. The genes encoding these two enzymes were expressed in Escherichia coli, and the enzymes were isolated and characterized. Substrate-feeding assays indicate that the nitrilase produces both IAM and IAA from the IAN substrate, while the nitrile hydratase only produces IAM. The two nitrile-hydrolyzing enzymes have very different temperature and pH optimums. Nitrilase prefers a temperature of 50°C and a pH of 6, while nitrile hydratase prefers 4°C and a pH of 7.5. Based on multiple sequence alignments and motif analyses, physicochemical properties and enzyme assays, it is concluded that the UW4 nitrilase has an aromatic substrate specificity. The nitrile hydratase is identified as an iron-type metalloenzyme that does not require the help of a P47K activator protein to be active. These data are interpreted in terms of a preliminary model for the biosynthesis of IAA in this bacterium.

Topics: Amino Acid Sequence; Aminohydrolases; Bacterial Proteins; Biotransformation; Enzyme Stability; Hydro-Lyases; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Molecular Sequence Data; Pseudomonas; Sequence Alignment; Substrate Specificity; Temperature

Indole-3-acetaldoxime (IAOx) is a branch point compound of tryptophan (Trp) metabolism in glucosinolate-producing species such as Arabidopsis, serving as a precursor to indole-glucosinolates (IGs), the defense compound camalexin, indole-3-acetonitrile (IAN) and indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). We synthesized [(2)H(5)] and [(13)C(10)(15)N(2)]IAOx and [(13)C(6)], [(2)H(5)] and [2',2'-(2)H(2)]IAN in order to quantify endogenous IAOx and IAN in Arabidopsis and tobacco, a non-IG producing species. We found that side chain-labeled [2',2'-(2)H(2)]IAN overestimated the amount of IAN by 2-fold compared to when [(2)H(5)]IAN was used as internal standard, presumably due to protium-deuterium exchange within the internal standard during extraction of plant tissue. We also determined that [(13)C(1)]IAN underestimated the amount of IAN when the ratio of [(13)C(1)]IAN standard to endogenous IAN was greater than five to one, whereas either [(2)H(5)]IAN or [(13)C(6)]IAN showed a linear relationship with endogenous IAN over a broader range of concentrations. Transgenic tobacco vector control lines did not have detectable levels of IAOx or IAN (limit of detection∼100 pg/gfr.wt), while lines expressing either the IAOx-producing CYP79B2 or CYP79B3 genes from Arabidopsis under CaMV 35S promoter control accumulated IAOx in the range of 1-9 μg/gfr.wt. IAN levels in these lines ranged from 0.6 to 6.7 μg/gfr.wt, and IAA levels were ∼9-14-fold above levels in control lines. An Arabidopsis line expressing the same CYP79B2 overexpression construct accumulated IAOx in two of three lines measured (∼200 and 400 ng/gfr.wt) and accumulated IAN in all three lines. IAN is proposed to be a metabolite of IAOx or an enzymatic breakdown product of IGs induced upon tissue damage. Since tobacco does not produce detectable IGs, the tobacco data are consistent with IAN being a metabolite of IAOx. IAOx and IAN were also examined in the Arabidopsis activation tagged yucca mutant, and no accumulation of IAOx was found above the limits of detection but accumulation of IAN (3-fold above wt) occurred. The latter was surprising in light of recent reports that rule out IAOx and IAN as intermediates in YUCCA-mediated IAA synthesis.

Topics: Arabidopsis; Glucosinolates; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Molecular Structure; Nicotiana; Oximes; Plants, Genetically Modified; Tryptophan

Comprehensive two-dimensional LC (LC x LC) is a powerful tool for analysis of complex biological samples. With its multidimensional separation power and increased peak capacity, LC x LC generates information-rich, but complex, chromatograms, which require advanced data analysis to produce useful information. An important analytical challenge is to classify samples on the basis of chromatographic features, e.g., to extract and utilize biomarkers indicative of health conditions, such as disease or response to therapy. This study presents a new approach to extract comprehensive non-target chromatographic features from a set of LC x LC chromatograms for sample classification. Experimental results with urine samples indicate that the chromatographic features generated by this approach can be used to effectively classify samples. Based on the extracted features, a support vector machine successfully classified urine samples by individual, before/after procedure, and concentration with leave-one-out and replicate K-fold cross-validation. The new method for comprehensive chromatographic feature analysis of LC x LC separations provides a potentially powerful tool for classifying complex biological samples.

Topics: 5-Hydroxytryptophan; Algorithms; Chromatography, Liquid; Humans; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Nitrates; Tryptophan; Tyrosine

Nitrilase enzymes catalyse the hydrolysis of nitrile compounds to the corresponding carboxylic acid and ammonia, and have been identified in plants, bacteria and fungi. There is mounting evidence to support a role for nitrilases in plant-microbe interactions, but the activity of these enzymes in plant pathogenic bacteria remains unexplored. The genomes of the plant pathogenic bacteria Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae B728a and Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 contain nitrilase genes with high similarity to characterized bacterial arylacetonitrilases. In this study, we show that the nitrilase of P. syringae pv. syringae B728a is an arylacetonitrilase, which is capable of hydrolysing indole-3-acetonitrile to the plant hormone indole-3-acetic acid, and allows P. syringae pv. syringae B728a to use indole-3-acetonitrile as a nitrogen source. This enzyme may represent an additional mechanism for indole-3-acetic acid biosynthesis by P. syringae pv. syringae B728a, or may be used to degrade and assimilate aldoximes and nitriles produced during plant secondary metabolism. Nitrilase activity was not detected in P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000, despite the presence of a homologous nitrilase gene. This raises the interesting question of why nitrilase activity has been retained in P. syringae pv. syringae B728a and not in P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000.

Topics: Aminohydrolases; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Phylogeny; Pseudomonas syringae

We isolated two nitrilase genes, ZmNIT1 and ZmNIT2, from maize (Zea mays) that share 75% sequence identity on the amino acid level. Despite the relatively high homology to Arabidopsis NIT4, ZmNIT2 shows no activity toward beta-cyano-alanine, the substrate of Arabidopsis NIT4, but instead hydrolyzes indole-3-acetonitrile (IAN) to indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). ZmNIT2 converts IAN to IAA at least seven to 20 times more efficiently than AtNIT1/2/3. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed the gene expression of both nitrilases in maize kernels where high concentrations of IAA are synthesized tryptophan dependently. Nitrilase protein and endogenous nitrilase activity are present in maize kernels together with the substrate IAN. These results suggest a role for ZmNIT2 in auxin biosynthesis.

Topics: Aminohydrolases; Cloning, Molecular; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Isoenzymes; Recombinant Proteins; Seeds; Substrate Specificity; Zea mays

Arabidopsis thaliana expresses four nitrilases, three of which (NIT1, NIT2 and NIT3) are able to convert indole-3-acetonitrile to indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), the plant growth hormone, while the isozyme NIT4 is a beta-cyano-l-alanine hydratase/nitrilase. NIT3 promoter activity is marginal in leaves or roots of vegetative plants and undetectable in bolting and flowering plants, but its level increases strongly when plants experience sulphur deprivation. No other nitrilase genes respond to sulphur supply/deficiency. Neither N- nor P-deprivation cause detectable changes in NIT3 promoter activity. In transgenic plants expressing uidA under the control of the NIT3 promoter (NIT3p::uidA), sulphate deprivation leads to the appearance of beta-glucuronidase activity in shoots and particularly in roots, most strongly in the conductive tissues and lateral root primordia. Deletion analysis allowed localization of the sulphur-responsive element to a 317 bp segment of the NIT3 promoter encompassing nt -2151 to -1834 upstream of the transcriptional start point. Both nitrilase polypeptide and nitrilase activity were also induced by sulphur starvation. NIT3 promoter activity was strongly induced by O-acetylserine, suggesting that, as is the case with enzymes of sulphate assimilation, sulphate deficiency may be communicated to NIT3 via an increase in the level of the cysteine precursor, O-acetylserine. During sulphur deprivation, a preferential depletion of the pool of the indole-3-acetonitrile precursor glucobrassicin compared with that of total glucosinolates was noticed. In the absence of an external sulphate supply, plants developed longer roots with a higher number of lateral roots. The increased growth of the root system occurred at the expense of shoot growth which was retarded under conditions of sulphur starvation. Taken together, these results suggest that a regulatory loop appears to exist by which sulphate deficiency, through an increase in glucobrassicin turnover and nitrilase 3 accumulation, initiates the production of extra auxin leading to increased root growth and branching, thus allowing the root system to penetrate new areas of soil effectively to gain access to fresh supplies of sulphur.

Topics: Aminohydrolases; Arabidopsis; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Glucosinolates; Glucuronidase; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Plant Leaves; Plant Roots; Plants, Genetically Modified; Promoter Regions, Genetic; Serine; Sulfur

The promoter of the nit1 gene, encoding the predominantly expressed isoform of the Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. nitrilase isoenzyme family, fused to the beta-glucuronidase gene (uidA) drives beta-glucuronidase expression in the root system of transgenic A. thaliana and tobacco plants. This expression pattern was shown to be controlled developmentally, suggesting that the early differentiation zone of root tips and the tissue surrounding the zone of lateral root primordia formation may constitute sites of auxin biosynthesis in plants. The root system of A. thaliana was shown to express functional nitrilase enzyme. When sterile roots were fed [2H]5-L-tryptophan, they converted this precursor to [2H]5-indole-3-acetonitrile and [2H]5-indole-3-acetic acid. This latter metabolite was further metabolized into base-labile conjugates which were the predominant form of [2H]5-indole-3-acetic acid extracted from roots. When [1-13C]-indole-3-acetonitrile was fed to sterile roots, it was converted to [1-13C]-indole-3-acetic acid which was further converted to conjugates. The results prove that the A. thaliana root system is an autonomous site of indole-3-acetic acid biosynthesis from L-tryptophan.

Topics: Aminohydrolases; Arabidopsis; Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Peptides; Plant Roots; Promoter Regions, Genetic; Tryptophan

Indole-3-acetic acid is the major auxin in most plants. In Cruciferae, including Brassicaceae, indole-3-acetic acid is synthesized from indole-3-acetonitrile by nitrilase, after indole-3-acetonitrile is formed from tryptophan via indole-3-acetaldoxime or indole glycosinolates as the intermediate. We cloned and sequenced the gene for nitrilase (EC 3.5.5.1), which catalyzes the hydrolysis of indole-3-acetonitrile to indole-3-acetic acid, from Alcaligenes faecalis JM3. The amino acid sequence deduced from the nucleotide sequence of the nitrilase gene shows 34.7% identity with that of Klebsiella ozaenae nitrilase. A DNA clone containing the nitrilase gene expressed the active enzyme in Escherichia coli with excellent yield. Among five cysteine residues (Cys-40, Cys-115, Cys-162, Cys-163, and Cys-218) in the Alcaligenes nitrilase, only Cys-163 was conserved at the corresponding position in the Klebsiella nitrilase. Two mutant enzymes, in which Cys-162 and Cys-163 were replaced with Asn and Ala, respectively, were constructed by site-directed mutagenesis. A 35% increase of the specific activity and a large reduction of the Km for thiophene-2-acetonitrile (which was used as a standard substrate for the nitrilase) were observed in the Cys-162-->Asn mutant enzyme. The Cys-163-->Ala mutation resulted in complete loss of nitrilase activity, clearly indicating that Cys-163 is crucial for the activity and Cys-162 could not provide the catalytic function of Cys-163.

Topics: Alcaligenes; Amino Acid Sequence; Aminohydrolases; Base Sequence; Cloning, Molecular; Cysteine; DNA; Escherichia coli; Genes, Bacterial; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Kinetics; Molecular Sequence Data; Mutagenesis, Site-Directed; Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; Polymerase Chain Reaction; Recombinant Proteins; Sequence Homology, Amino Acid

From an Arabidopsis thaliana cDNA expression library, a cDNA clone was isolated, characterized and sequenced which, at the amino acid level, resembled the Klebsiella ozaenae bromoxynil nitrilase encoded by the bxn gene. The cDNA contained a long open reading frame, starting from two possible neighbouring ATG codons and capable of encoding 340 or 346 amino acids with calculated molecular masses of 37526 Da or 38176 Da, respectively. The sequence similarity between the deduced polypeptides from the Arabidopsis cDNA and bxn was clustered in three domains, one at the C-terminus, one in the center and one near the N-terminus of the two proteins, suggesting important functional elements in these parts of the proteins. The cDNA was cloned into different vectors under the control of the lacZ promotor and was functionally expressed by induction with isopropyl-beta-D-thiogalactoside. Using a combination of high-performance liquid chromatography, monoclonal-antibody based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and mass spectroscopy, it was shown that the isolated cDNA clone encodes an enzymatically active nitrilase which is able to convert indole-3-acetonitrile to the plant growth hormone, indole-3-acetic-acid.

Topics: Amino Acid Sequence; Aminohydrolases; Base Sequence; Blotting, Southern; Cloning, Molecular; DNA; Gene Expression; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Molecular Sequence Data; Plant Growth Regulators; Plants; Restriction Mapping; Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid

Topics: Acetonitriles; Growth Hormone; Indoleacetic Acids; Indoles; Plant Development; Plant Growth Regulators