0000000001293129
AUTHOR
Borja Cascales-miñana
The phosphorylated pathway of serine biosynthesis is essential both for male gametophyte and embryo development and for root growth in Arabidopsis.
This study characterizes the phosphorylated pathway of Ser biosynthesis (PPSB) in Arabidopsis thaliana by targeting phosphoserine phosphatase (PSP1), the last enzyme of the pathway. Lack of PSP1 activity delayed embryo development, leading to aborted embryos that could be classified as early curled cotyledons. The embryo-lethal phenotype of psp1 mutants could be complemented with PSP1 cDNA under the control of Pro35S (Pro35S:PSP1). However, this construct, which was poorly expressed in the anther tapetum, did not complement mutant fertility. Microspore development in psp1.1/psp1.1 Pro35S:PSP1 arrested at the polarized stage. The tapetum from these lines displayed delayed and irregular devel…
A new highly diverse palynoflora from the Lower Devonian Nogueras Formation of the Iberian Peninsula
AbstractA new well-preserved spore assemblage has been discovered from the Lower Devonian Nogueras Formation of Mezquita de Loscos (Teruel Province, north-eastern Spain). The palynoflora includes 34 spore species belonging to 20 genera, among which 14 are new for the locality, e.g. Apiculiretusispora, Brochotriletes, Cirratriradites, Iberoespora, Knoxisporites and Verrucosisporites. The assemblage is mainly composed of trilete spores, while tripapillate and monolete forms are also observed. An early Pragian age is suggested for the fossil site. Specimens of Latosporites ovalis, a species previously well-documented only from the late Pragian–Emsian of Saudi Arabia and Brazil, are found in th…
Discovery of a Lochkovian flora (Lower Devonian) in the Iberian Peninsula
ABSTRACT The Lower Devonian represents an important episode in plant life history, which was marked by the diversification of land plants. Unfortunately, remains of early Devonian plants in the Iberian Peninsula are scarce. In the present paper, we describe a small assemblage of early land plants from the Lochkovian (Lower Devonian) of the Teruel Province in Spain. The main element consists of Taeniocrada-like sterile stems that are predominandy dichotomous and ribbon-like with a narrow central strand. An unidentified fossil formed by dichotomous axes together with an uncertain globular structure were also observed. This finding increases our knowledge of the palaeogeographical distribution…
Serine biosynthesis by photorespiratory and nonphotorespiratory pathways: and interesting interplay with unknown regulatory networks
[EN] Photorespiration is a primary metabolic pathway, which, given its energy costs, has often been viewed as a wasteful process. Despite having reached the consensus that one important function of photorespiration is the removal of toxic metabolite intermediates, other possible functions have emerged, and others could well emerge in the future. As a primary metabolic pathway, photorespiration interacts with other routes; however the nature of these interactions is not well known. One of these interacting pathways could be the biosynthesis of serine, since this amino acid is synthesised through photorespiratory and non-photorespiratory routes. At present, the exact contribution of each rout…
New insights into the reading of Paleozoic plant fossil record discontinuities
Studying the discontinuity patterns of Paleozoic vascular plants provides a global vision of these key events from the multivariate methods viewpoint. Non-metric multidimensional scaling, detrended correspondence analysis and cluster analysis have been employed together with a set of diversity and abundance measures and an evaluation of the geologic constraints from the plant fossil record data. The results reveal four clear significant discontinuities in terms of taxonomic composition and record representativeness during the early-middle Devonian, Devonian–Carboniferous, Mississippian–Pennsylvanian and early-late Permian. Due to the controversial character of the plant fossil record data a…
Plastidial Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency Leads to Altered Root Development and Affects the Sugar and Amino Acid Balance in Arabidopsis
[EN] Glycolysis is a central metabolic pathway that, in plants, occurs in both the cytosol and the plastids. The glycolytic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) catalyzes the conversion of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate to 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate with concomitant reduction of NAD(+) to NADH. Both cytosolic (GAPCs) and plastidial (GAPCps) GAPDH activities have been described. However, the in vivo functions of the plastidial isoforms remain unresolved. In this work, we have identified two Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) chloroplast/plastid-localized GAPDH isoforms (GAPCp1 and GAPCp2). gapcp double mutants display a drastic phenotype of arrested root development, dwarfism, and steri…
Plant fossil record and survival analyses
Cascales-Minana, B. & Cleal, C.J. 2011: Plant fossil record and survival analyses. Lethaia, Vol. 45, pp. 71–82. Survival analysis is a classic palaeobiological method widely used on the animal fossil record. This study reports the first application of survivorship analyses on the plant fossil record from a global viewpoint and provides a new comparative approach of this methodology. The results reveal three important plant extinction events in the history of plant life at a global scale. The results also clearly suggest that the origination events are more intensive than extinction processes and that the origination moment of several lineages of vascular plants is an important factor that c…
New insights into the diversity dynamics of Triassic conodonts
International audience; In this paper, we examine the diversity trends and the evolutionary patterns of Triassic conodonts through a newly powered large-scale data-set compiled directly from the primary literature. Paleodiversity dynamics analyses have been undertaken by working at the species level and using a system of time units based on biozone subdivisions for a fine temporal level resolution. The role of heterogeneous duration of taxa in diversity estimates has been evaluated through the probabilistic profiles. Results reveal three different stages in the diversity behaviour of Triassic conodonts from standing metrics delimited by two inflections at the mid-Anisian and mid-Carnian. Su…
Exploring the major depletions of conodont diversity during the Triassic
International audience; In this paper, we show that the Triassic fossil record reflects just two great depletions of conodont diversity before the Rhaetian, which occurred in the Smithian (Olenekian, Early Triassic) and in the Julian (Carnian, Late Triassic). By exploring this context, our results highlighted that they respond to different origination?extinction dynamics. Thus, while the Smithian diversity depletion can be interpreted as a consequence of elevated extinction, the Julian diversity depletion was triggered by fluctuations in origination regime. This evidence suggests that, despite the role of extinction on diversity losses, conodonts suffered crucial changes on the origination …
Interactions between abscisic acid and plastidial glycolysis in Arabidopsis
[EN] The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) controls the development of plants and plays a crucial role in their response to adverse environmental conditions like salt and water stress.1-3 Complex interactions between ABA and sugar signal transduction pathways have been shown. However, the role played by glycolysis in these interactions is not known. In the associated study,4 we investigated the interactions between plastidial glycolytic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPCp) and ABA signal transduction in Arabidopsis. We followed physiological, genetic and genomic approaches to understand the processes and mechanisms underlying the ABAglycolysis interactions. Our results indicated …
Trends and patterns in the evolution of vascular plants: macroevolutionary implications of a multilevel taxonomic analysis
Cascales-Minana, B., Munoz-Bertomeu, J., Ros, R., Segura, J. 2010: Trends and patterns in the evolution of vascular plants: macroevolutionary implications of a multilevel taxonomic analysis. Lethaia, 10.1111/j.1502-3931.2009.00212.x Studying the macroevolutionary patterns of vascular plants from the Silurian to the present-day provides a global record of plant life history. Evolutionary rates (origination, extinction and diversification) for families, orders, classes and divisions were analysed, as was abundance and richness for 21 time intervals. An accumulative analysis, based on the total plant fossil record, the accumulated extinctions and relative diversity, was also carried out. The d…
The Plastidial Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Is Critical for Viable Pollen Development in Arabidopsis
Plant metabolism is highly coordinated with development. However, an understanding of the whole picture of metabolism and its interactions with plant development is scarce. In this work, we show that the deficiency in the plastidial glycolytic glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPCp) leads to male sterility in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Pollen from homozygous gapcp double mutant plants (gapcp1gapcp2) displayed shrunken and collapsed forms and were unable to germinate when cultured in vitro. The pollen alterations observed in gapcp1gapcp2 were attributed to a disorganized tapetum layer. Accordingly, the expression of several of the genes involved in tapetum development was d…
A critical role of plastidial glycolytic Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase in the control of plant metabolism and development
3 páginas.
New insights into the diversity dynamics of Triassic conodonts
In this paper, we examine the diversity trends and the evolutionary patterns of Triassic conodonts through a newly powered large-scale data-set compiled directly from the primary literature. Paleodiversity dynamics analyses have been undertaken by working at the species level and using a system of time units based on biozone subdivisions for a fine temporal level resolution. The role of heterogeneous duration of taxa in diversity estimates has been evaluated through the probabilistic profiles. Results reveal three different stages in the diversity behaviour of Triassic conodonts from standing metrics delimited by two inflections at the mid-Anisian and mid-Carnian. Survivorship analysis supp…