Biology subjects

Allu, A. D.

Publications and source records attributed to Allu, A. D..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Thermopriming prewires orchestrated regulatory programs to enhance heat stress adaptability

- Plants can remember earlier stress exposures (priming), which improves tolerance to later, more severe stress. How this stress memory is organised in crops remains largely unresolved. - We studied five-day-old rice seedlings subjected to severe heat stress with or without thermopriming, combining phenotyping, time-resolved transcriptomic and epigenomic profiling with systems biology approaches and targeted molecular experiments. - Compared with unprimed seedlings, primed seedlings showed a restrained, lower-entropy transcriptional response spanning diverse biological processes. This response was driven by fewer transcription factors that modulate regulons for both stress response and growth, together contributing to better adaptability to severe stress. - Primed seedlings maintained global H3K27me3 levels, which declined in unprimed seedlings, linking retention rather than removal of this mark to the restrained response. - Priming led to the accumulation of memory chaperone transcripts, enabling a rapid rise in protein abundance under severe stress. This supports better post-translational regulation, alongside the coordinated transcriptional response. Overall, thermopriming establishes pre-wired programmes that enhance adaptability through regulatory order and speed, not amplitude, and repressive-mark retention, not removal, during early development. These findings have implications for (i) understanding heat stress memory in addressing climate change driven heat extremes, and (ii) engineering climate-resilient crops.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2025

ERF transcription factor regulons underpin growth-defence trade-off under acute heat stress in rice seedlings

O_LIRice, a staple cereal crop, faces significant threats from rising temperatures, affecting all growth stages including early seedling establishment. Despite being critical in determining overall growth and productivity, response to heat stress during the early seedling stage remains understudied. This research aimed to assess the impact of acute heat stress on rice seedlings and unravel underlying molecular mechanisms. C_LIO_LIRice seedlings were exposed to varying intensities and durations of heat stress to determine a critical threshold affecting growth. To elucidate the transcription factor (TF)-mediated regulatory mechanisms and their functional interactome in response to stress, transcriptomic analysis of shoots and roots exposed to acute heat stress was performed. C_LIO_LITranscriptome analysis unveiled a comprehensive TF-target regulatory map for shoots and roots, potentially involved in the modulation of growth-defence trade-off in response to acute heat stress. Ethylene Responsive Factors (ERFs) emerged as central regulators, with phytohormones ethylene and jasmonic acid acting as upstream modulators. Pre-treatment with these phytohormones alleviated the adverse effects of heat stress. C_LIO_LIThis study uncovers key molecular mechanisms governing rice seedling responses to acute heat stress involving ERFs-hormonal interactions. Modulating these core regulators presents a promising strategy to enhance heat resilience, addressing global food security amid rising temperatures. C_LI

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2023

IRE1 regulated autophagy and chaperone levels cooperatively modulate acquired thermotolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana

Rapid climate change demands the development of heat-resilient plants. Elevated temperatures perturb cellular protein homeostasis, and its timely restoration is crucial for plant survival after stress. Thermopriming, which involves pre-exposure to sublethal heat stress, has emerged as a promising strategy for enhancing heat stress tolerance. However, the impact of thermopriming on protein homeostasis remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that priming-mediated acquired thermotolerance involves the dynamic regulation of protein maintenance and clearance mechanisms. Priming facilitates the activation of heat shock response (HSR) via HSFA1, and unfolded protein response (UPR). Simultaneously, priming induces the protein clearance pathway, namely autophagy, potentially through the dynamic modulation of autophagy-negative regulators. Contrastingly, unprimed seedlings fail to mount HSR and UPR, resulting in disrupted proteostasis and the accumulation of aggregates, and ultimately fail to survive. While the loss of UPR was found to have a minimal impact on priming-mediated outcomes, the HSR response proved essential, as its absence led to lethality under heat stress. Additionally, the absence of HSR was found to enhance the autophagy response post-stress. Our results highlight the critical role of protein maintenance mechanisms over clearance pathways in ensuring survival. Taken together, our study demonstrates that thermopriming enhances heat stress resilience by temporally coordinating autophagy, HSR and UPR responses to maintain proteostasis.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Genome-wide analysis of lncRNAs points to their roles in the modulation of developmental regulator expression during plant male germline development

LncRNAs can function in regulating of gene expression, but their roles as essential regulators of developmental processes and organismal phenotypes remain largely unclear. Especially the roles of lncRNAs in plants are largely unexplored. However, it has been proposed that plant lncRNAs act as regulators of protein-coding genes during development and that the similar roles of animal and plant lncRNAs result from convergent evolution. Since pollen development follows an established program with well-defined and characterized stages, we have used it as a model for studying plant lncRNAs and their roles in reproductive development. We investigated of lncRNA expression and function during pollen formation in field mustard (Brassica rapa). Reference-based transcriptome assembly performed to update the existing genome annotation identified novel expressed protein-coding genes and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), including 4,347 long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs, 1058 expressed) and 2,045 lncRNAs overlapping protein-coding genes on the opposite strand (lncNATs, 780 expressed). The analysis of expression profiles reveals that lncRNAs are significant and stage-specific contributors to the gene expression profile of developing pollen. Gene co-expression networks accompanied by genome location analysis identified 38 cis-acting lincRNA, 31 cis-acting lncNAT, 7 trans-acting lincRNA and 14 trans-acting lncNAT to be substantially co-expressed with target protein-coding genes involved in biological processes regulating pollen development and male lineage specification. These findings provide a foundation for future research aiming at developing strategies to employ lncRNAs as regulatory tools for gene expression control during reproductive development.

plant biology↗