David W Galbraith

PMID: 11470511;Abstract:

Cytochrome P450 (P450s) are heme-thiolate protein products of a very large gene superfamily, present in all kingdoms and involved in a variety of metabolic reactions. P450s are classified according to the degree of amino acid sequence identity, with P450s of the same family defined as having >40% identity, and P450s of the same subfamily having >55% identity. Currently, 273 P450 genes distributed over 45 families have been identified in Arabidopsis, and its genome is estimated to contain as many as 286. Genome-wide DNA microarrays make it possible to broadly correlate P450 gene activity with alterations in physiological or developmental states. A potential problem with microarray research is that sequence similarity between and within these families of closely related genes may lead to cross-hybridization. We designed experiments to systematically evaluate the specificity of P450 microarrays, and showed that conditions could be optimized to provide a very high degree of hybridization specificity. Under these conditions, and employing a 20% intensity value of maximum hybridization intensity as a cut-off, labeled P450 genes exhibited essentially no cross-hybridization between families and within subfamilies. We also compared the gene transcription levels of microarray probes derived from EST clones and from genomic DNA sequences for which ESTs were not available, using cDNA produced from RNA from various Arabidopsis tissue as the target. Many of the P450 genes displayed tissue-specific expression, leading to hypotheses as to the function of individual genes and their regulation. We also observed that several of the genomic sequences reported high levels of expression, highlighting the limitations of expression analysis based on ESTs alone. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

PMID: 18264977;Abstract:

The expression of a fusion protein formed between the avian infectious bronchitis virus M protein and the bacterial enzyme β-glucuronidase (GUS) in plants promotes the formation of new organization of the endoplasmic reticulunn in tobacco plants. This unusual organization of the membranes, never present in nontransformed plants, has been explained by the oligomerization of the GUS domains of the IBVM-GUS fusion proteins. These specific organized membranes could have broad implications for biotechnology since their formation could be used as a mechanism for retaining and accumulating resident proteins in specific and discrete membrane compartments. In this study, we have shown that the unusual organization of native membranes due to overexpression of the IBVM-GUS fusion gene in tobacco transgenic plants and calli is present at higher levels in plant cell suspensions than in plant tissues. In these cell suspensions, IBVM-GUS protein was continuously synthesized and accumulated throughout the cell culture. An enrichment of the chimeric IBVM-GUS protein corresponding to a five-fold increase in the microsomal fractions was achieved and the GUS enzyme did not show any modification on enzyme kinetics. However, the GUS activity could be differentially distributed in the fractions eluted at different pH suggesting differences in the surface topography of histidine residues for this recombinant GUS. © 2008 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.