Plant hormones are a group of structurally diverse small compounds that orchestrate the cellular processes governing proper plant growth and environmental adaptation. To understand the details of hormonal activity, we must study not only their inherent activities but also the cross-talk among plant hormones. In addition to their use in agriculture, plant chemical activators, such as probenazole and uniconazole, have made great contributions to understand hormonal cross-talk. However, the use of plant chemical activators is limited due to the lack of activators for certain hormones. For example, to the best of our knowledge, there are only a few chemical activators previously known to stimulate the accumulation of ABA in plants, such as absinazoles and proanthocyanidins. In many cases, antagonistic effects have been examined in experiments using exogenously applied ABA, although these studies did not account for biologically relevant concentrations. In this report, it was found that a natural product, theobroxide, had potential as a plant chemical activator for stimulating the accumulation of ABA. Using theobroxide, the antagonistic effect of ABA against GAs was proved without exogenously applying ABA or using mutant plants. Our results suggest that ABA levels could be chemically controlled to elicit ABA-dependent biological phenomena.
The structure of microtubules is essential for the fertilizing ability of spermatozoa. Acetylation of α-tubulin plays an important role in flagellar elongation
and spermatozoa motility. Previous reports have suggested that alpha-tubulin N-acetyltransferase 1 (ATAT1) is the main acetyltransferase involved in the
acetylation of α-tubulin. Although ATAT1 is reported to express in the testis, no information is available regarding its expression in elongated spermatids,
epididymis, and mature spermatozoa. Hence, it remains unclear whether ATAT1 is involved in spermatozoa maturation and capacitation. Therefore, we evaluated the
expression of ATAT1 in the mouse male reproductive system using immunostaining and western blotting. Our results showed that ATAT1 was expressed in spermatids
during spermiogenesis in mouse testes, but its expression varied according to the seminiferous tubule stage. We observed ATAT1 in the cytoplasm of round
spermatids, the flagella of elongated spermatids, and in the cytoplasm of step 16 spermatids, just before its release into the lumen. In addition, ATAT1 was
expressed in epithelial cells of the epididymis. In spermatozoa of the cauda epididymis, ATAT1 expression was primarily observed in the midpiece of the
spermatozoa. The localization of ATAT1 protein in the male germline was observed during spermiogenesis as well as during spermatozoa maturation. Our results
suggest that ATAT1 may be involved in the formation of flagella and in the acetylation process, which has attracted attention in recent years regarding male
infertility.
Theobroxide has been isolated from culture filtrates of Lasiodiplodia theobromae as a potato tuber-inducing compound. In this study, the metabolism of theobroxide was investigated using cowpea as an experimental model and [ 2 H 3-7]theobroxide as a substrate for analyzing a metabolite, which revealed that theobroxide applied exogenously to the roots was converted into 3-O--D-glucopyranosyltheobroxide.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.