Plants respond to cold by transcriptional and metabolic responses which underlie tolerance and acclimation mechanisms, but details at the molecular level are incomplete. Here we describe KOLD SENSITIV-1 (KOS1), a new gene required for responses to cold. KOS1 protein is predicted to have coiled-coil, Structural Maintenance of Chromosomes and nuclear-targeting domains. GFP-labeled KOS1 localizes to the nucleus. Null mutants could not be isolated but two independent knockdown T-DNA mutants were obtained. Growth and development of kos1 knockdown mutant plants was comparable to wild type when grown at 21 °C. However, when grown at 4 °C these mutants exhibited accelerated leaf yellowing and smaller rosette size than wild type. Quantitative RT-PCR revealed that in the cold kos1 mutants had reduced expression of cold-responsive transcripts COR15A, COR15B, BAM3 and AMY3. Metabolite profiling revealed that ascorbate levels were lower in the mutants in the cold relative to wild type. KOS1 therefore represents a new gene that influences the regulation of transcript and metabolite levels in response to prolonged chilling temperatures.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Arabidopsis thaliana, ascorbate, cold acclimation, gene expression, nuclear protein, starch
Research Division:	Biological Sciences
Research Group:	Plant biology
Research Field:	Plant physiology
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences
UTAS Author:	Smith, SM (Professor Steven Smith)
ID Code:	101635
Year Published:	2011
Web of Science® Times Cited:	5
Deposited By:	Plant Science
Deposited On:	2015-06-26
Last Modified:	2018-10-05
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