Phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase is an antioxidant enzyme that has the highest capability of reducing membrane-bound hydroperoxy lipids as compared to free organic and inorganic hydroperoxides amongst the glutathione peroxidases.In this study,urea-induced effects on the inactivation and unfolding of a recombinant phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase（PHGPx）from Oryza sativa were investigated by means of circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy.With the increase of urea concentration,the residual activity of OsPHGPx decreases correspondingly.When the urea concentration is above 5.0 mol/L,there was no residual activity.In addition,the observed changes in intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence,the binding of the hydrophobic fluorescence probe ANS,and the far UV CD describe a common dependence on the concentration of urea suggesting that the conformational features of the native OsPHGPx are lost in a highly cooperative single transition.The unfolding process comprises of three zones：the native base-line zone between 0 and 2.5 mol/L urea,the transition zone between 2.5 and 5.5 mol/L urea,and the denatured base-line zone above 5.5 mol/L urea.The transition zone has a midpoint at about 4.0 mol/L urea.
WANG FengZHOU Hui-pingKONG Bao-huaFAN Jing-huaCHEN Hai-ruLIU Jin-yuan
Grain weight is a major determinant of crop grain yield and is controlled by naturally occurring quantitative trait loci （QTLs）. We earlier identified a major QTL that controls rice grain width and weight, GW5, which was mapped to a recombination hotspot on rice chromosome 5. To gain a better understanding of how GW5 controls rice grain width, we conducted fine mapping of this locus and uncovered a 1 212-bp deletion associated with the increased grain width in the rice cultivar Asominori, in comparison with the slender grain rice IR24. In addition, genotyping analyses of 46 rice cultivars revealed that this deletion is highly correlated with the grain-width phenotype, suggesting that the GW5 deletion might have been selected during rice domestication. GW5 encodes a novel nuclear protein of 144 amino acids that is localized to the nucleus. Furthermore, we show that GW5 physically interacts with polyubiquitin in a yeast two-hybrid assay. Together, our results suggest that GW5 represents a major QTL underlying rice width and weight, and that it likely acts in the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway to regulate cell division during seed development. This study provides novel insights into the molecular mechanisms controlling rice grain development and suggests that GW5 could serve as a potential tool for high-yield breeding of crops.
