Abstract
Dehydrins, known as the D-11 subgroup of late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) protein, are an immunologically distinct family of proteins, which typically accumulate in desiccation-tolerant seed embryo or in vegetative tissues in response to various environmental stresses such as drought, salinity and freezing. The existence of conservative sequences designated as K, 5, and Y segments is a structural feature of dehydrins, and the K segment found in all dehydrins represents a highly conserved 15 amino acid motif (EKKGIMDKIKEKLPG) and forms an amphiphilic α-helix. According to the arrangement of these domains and clustering analysis, dehydrins are subdivided into 5 subtypes: YnSK, Kn, KnS, SKn and YnK. Different types of dehydrins are induced by different environmental stress in plants. Study results showed that dehydrins might play important protective roles under abiotic stress via a number of different mechanisms, including improving or protecting enzyme activities by the cryoprotective activity in responding to freez/thaw or dehydration; stabilizing vesicles or other endomembrane structures by function as the membrane stabilizer during freeze induced dehydration, and preventing the membrane system from the oxidative damage induced by reactive oxygen radicals as the radical scavenger. Here, the gene expression and molecular mechanisms of dehydrin in response to stress in plants are discussed.
* Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 30370128 and 30570146) and the National Program of Research and Development of Transgenic Plants of China (Grant No. J00-A-008-03, JY-03-A-20-02)
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* Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 30370128 and 30570146) and the National Program of Research and Development of Transgenic Plants of China (Grant No. J00-A-008-03, JY-03-A-20-02)