Nepenthesin protease activity indicates digestive fluid dynamics in carnivorous nepenthes plants

PloS One
Franziska BuchAxel Mithöfer

Abstract

Carnivorous plants use different morphological features to attract, trap and digest prey, mainly insects. Plants from the genus Nepenthes possess specialized leaves called pitchers that function as pitfall-traps. These pitchers are filled with a digestive fluid that is generated by the plants themselves. In order to digest caught prey in their pitchers, Nepenthes plants produce various hydrolytic enzymes including aspartic proteases, nepenthesins (Nep). Knowledge about the generation and induction of these proteases is limited. Here, by employing a FRET (fluorescent resonance energy transfer)-based technique that uses a synthetic fluorescent substrate an easy and rapid detection of protease activities in the digestive fluids of various Nepenthes species was feasible. Biochemical studies and the heterologously expressed Nep II from Nepenthes mirabilis proved that the proteolytic activity relied on aspartic proteases, however an acid-mediated auto-activation mechanism was necessary. Employing the FRET-based approach, the induction and dynamics of nepenthesin in the digestive pitcher fluid of various Nepenthes plants could be studied directly with insect (Drosophila melanogaster) prey or plant material. Moreover, we observed that ...Continue Reading

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Citations

Feb 26, 2016·Annals of Botany·Sandy RottloffFrédéric Bourgaud
Aug 3, 2016·Scientific Reports·Martial ReyDavid C Schriemer
Mar 22, 2016·Plant Physiology and Biochemistry : PPB·Andrej PavlovičLubomír Adamec
May 17, 2018·Planta·Michaela SaganováAndrej Pavlovič
May 20, 2016·Genome Research·Felix BemmRainer Hedrich
Sep 16, 2017·Scientific Reports·Ayufu YilamujiangAxel Mithöfer
Jun 25, 2020·International Journal of Molecular Sciences·Alberto Dávila-LaraAxel Mithöfer
May 6, 2020·Plants·Zelalem Eshetu BekaluAnd Henrik Brinch-Pedersen
May 24, 2019·Journal of Experimental Botany·Andrej Pavlovič, Axel Mithöfer
Jun 11, 2021·Annals of Botany·Lubomír AdamecAndrej Pavlovič
Jul 21, 2016·Journal of Proteome Research·Linda LeeDavid C Schriemer

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Datasets Mentioned

BETA
AB114914
AB114915
AB266803
AFV26024
AFV26025

Methods Mentioned

BETA
FRET
transfection
PCR
glycosylation

Software Mentioned

MegAlign ( DNASTAR )
SignalP
CLUSTAL
NetNGlyc
software
Primer3Web
DNASTAR Lasergene
SeqMan Pro
Jalview - Open Source Bioinformatics

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