A novel abscisic acid- and dehydration-responsive gene family from the resurrection plant Craterostigma plantagineum encodes a plastid-targeted protein with DNA-binding activity.

In the desiccation-tolerant resurrection plant Craterostigma plantagineum Hochst. the chloroplasts undergo major ultrastructural changes during dehydration, which are reversible upon rehydration. Such alterations argue the need for efficient protective/stabilising mechanisms to exist. Here we describe a novel gene family that is rapidly and transiently expressed in response to both dehydration and exogenously applied abscisic acid, mostly in the chloroplast-rich palisade layer on the adaxial side of the leaf. Analysis of the putative coding region suggests that the resulting protein is plastid-targeted. This was confirmed using a chimeric green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter construct in transgenic tobacco plants - hence the gene family is termed Plastid Targeted Protein ( CpPTP). Fluorescence microscopy also revealed that CpPTP was localised in structures similar to proplastid nucleoids in transgenic tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum L.) BY-2 cells. The ability of CpPTP to interact with DNA was demonstrated through a DNaseI protection assay. A structure-prediction programme suggests that the mature CpPTP is composed almost entirely of a pattern of hydrophobic and hydrophilic residues that form heptad repeats, which are the hallmarks of a coiled-coil domain. Given the localisation and DNA-binding property of the protein, we propose that CpPTP plays a role during the early stages of dehydration-induced chloroplast remodelling.