植物におけるオートファジー研究の展開
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概要
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Plants have to adapt to drastic changes in environmental conditions because of their immortality. They have to cope with various types of environmental stresses, such as starvation, oxidative stress, drought stress, and invasion by phytopathogens, during their differentiation, development and aging processes. The germination and growth of seeds in nitrogen-poor soil or in the shade, for instance, indicates that plants have mechanisms for coping with nitrogen- and carbon-starvation. Under such nutrient-poor conditions the bulk degradation and recycling of macromolecules is integral to the ability of plants to adapt to their environment. Autophagy is the major system responsible for the degradation of organelles, fragmented organelles and cytosolic macromolecules in the vacuole and therefore is assumed to be an extremely important function in plants. Here we briefly describe early studies of plant autophagy, summarize the recent studies on molecular functions of ATG genes and plant autophagy-monitoring systems, and finally introduce the speculated role of autophagy in plants.
- 2010-05-31