Abstract
Cold acclimation induces lipid changes in plant cells. Especially, the increase in the content of phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) has attracted our major interest in understanding the lipid function at low temperature. We recently reported that selective enhancement of the expression of AtCCT2 (At4g15130), one of the two isogenes for Arabidopsis CTP:phosphorylcholine cytidylyltransferase, could account for the biosynthesis of PC in the rosettes of Arabidopsis at low temperature (Inatsugi et al. (2002) Plant Cell Physiol. 43:1342-1350). We herein found that accumulation of PE in Arabidopsis at low temperature started a few days later than that of PC and that the delayed PE accumulation could be accounted for by delayed enhancement of the transcript levels of AtECT1 (At2g38670) encoding Arabidopsis CTP:phosphorylethanolamine cytidylyltransferase. The result clearly demonstrates that Arabidopsis has evolved different modes of gene expression in the biosyntheses of PE and PC (Supported in part by a grant form PROBRAIN).
