Methanol may function as a cross-kingdom signal.
Abstract
Recently, we demonstrated that leaf wounding results in the synthesis of pectin methylesterase (PME), which causes the plant to release methanol into the air. Methanol emitted by a wounded plant increases the accumulation of methanol-inducible gene mRNA and enhances antibacterial resistance as well as cell-to-cell communication, which facilitates virus spreading in neighboring plants. We concluded that methanol is a signaling molecule involved in within-plant and plant-to-plant communication. Methanol is considered to be a poison in humans because of the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH)-mediated conversion of methanol into toxic formaldehyde. However, recent data showed that methanol is a natural compound in normal, healthy humans. These data call into question whether human methanol is a metabolic waste product or whether methanol has specific function in humans. Here, to reveal human methanol-responsive genes (MRGs), we used suppression subtractive hybridization cDNA libraries of HeLa cells lacking ADH and exposed to methanol. This design allowed us to exclude genes involved in formaldehyde and formic acid detoxification from our analysis. We identified MRGs and revealed a correlation between increases in methanol content in the p...Continue Reading
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The Antioxidant Cofactor Alpha-Lipoic Acid May Control Endogenous Formaldehyde Metabolism in Mammals
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