Expression analysis of a sugarcane legumain in plants submitted to cell death by tunicamycin

• Grant number: 12/14559-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: October 01, 2012
• End date: August 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Molecular Biology
• Principal Investigator: Flavio Henrique da Silva
• Grantee: Ana Lígia Buzolin
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The cysteine peptidases (CPs) are proteolytic enzymes that have a cystein residue at its active site. Plant legumains are CPs known as Vacuolar Processing Enzymes (VPEs). VPEs from seeds are related to processing and mobilization of storage proteins and at the programmed cell death process (PCD) during seed development. In plants, PCD occurs during development, as well as in xylogenesis, embryogenesis, aerenchyma formation, reproductive processes, seed development and leaves senescence. Cellular suicide also contributes largely in the defense against environmental stresses and against pathogens attack. In the last years several peptidases associated to cell death, showing caspase-like activity (with cleavage adjacent to an aspartate residue) have been identified, among them, the legumains. Therefore, the present project aims to refine the analysis related to sugarcane legumains by in silico analysis, as well as analyze the expression of one of them, already studied in our laboratory, in plants submitted to cell death by chemical inductor tunicamycin. The results obtained will be important to understand the functions performed by legumain in sugarcane and can contribute to the knowledge of the PCD process in this plant.