Macroautophagy (herein referred to as autophagy) is an evolutionarily conserved self-digestive process cells adapt to starvation and other stress responses. Upon starvation, autophagy is induced, providing cells with needed nutrient supplies. We report here that Unc-51-like kinase 1 (Ulk1), a key initiator for mammalian autophagy, undergoes dramatic dephosphorylation upon starvation, particular...

The effect of potassium starvation on stomatal conductance was studied in olive trees and sunflower plants, two major crops with greatly differing botanical characteristics. In both species, K(+) starvation inhibited water-stress-induced stomatal closure. In olive trees, potassium starvation favoured stomatal conductance and transpiration, as well as inhibiting shoot growth, in the three cultiv...

Organisms respond to environmental stress by adopting changes in gene expression at the transcriptional level. Rpb4, a nonessential subunit of the core RNA polymerase II has been proposed to play a role in non-stress-specific transcription and in the regulation of stress response in yeast. We find that in addition to the temperature sensitivity of the null mutant of Rpb4, diploid null mutants a...

We identified a response regulator in Mycobacterium smegmatis which plays an important role in adaptation to oxygen-starved stationary phase. The regulator exhibits strong sequence similarity to DevR/Rv3133c of M. tuberculosis. The structural gene is present on a multigene locus, which also encodes a sensor kinase. A devR mutant of M. smegmatis was adept at surviving growth arrest initiated by ...

A carbon starvation-responding lac fusion of the marine Vibrio sp. strain S14 was used as a reporter strain in order to identify genes critical in the regulation of the carbon starvation response. Interestingly, sequence data together with an altered phenotype with respect to the accumulation of guanosine 3',5'-bispyrophosphate (ppGpp) imply that one of the genes (csrS) identified by this appro...

Plants respond to phosphate (Pi) starvation by exhibiting a suite of developmental, biochemical, and physiological changes to cope with this nutritional stress. To understand the molecular mechanism underlying these responses, we isolated an Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) mutant, hypersensitive to phosphate starvation1 (hps1), which has enhanced sensitivity in almost all aspects of plant re...

Nitrogen starvation has been shown to increase the cytosolic arginine concentration and to accelerate protein turnover in mycelia of Neurospora crassa. The cytosolic arginine is derived from a metabolically inactive vacuolar pool. Redistribution of arginine between cytosolic and vacuolar compartments is the result of mobilization of this metabolite in response to nitrogen starvation. Mobilizati...

The efficient use of nutrients is important in development and aging. In this study, we asked if the protein repair methyltransferase has a related or additional role in energy metabolism and stress response in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Worms lacking the pcm-1 gene encoding this enzyme exhibit reduced longevity as SDS-isolated dauer larvae and as arrested L1 larvae under starvation s...

Levels of RpoS increase upon glucose starvation in Escherichia coli, which leads to the transcription of genes whose products combat a variety of stresses. RpoS stability is a key level of control in this process, as SprE (RssB)-mediated degradation is inhibited under glucose starvation. Starvation for ammonia or phosphate also results in increased stress resistance and induction of RpoS-depend...

Malpighian tubules are critical organs for epithelial fluid transport and stress tolerance in insects, and are under neuroendocrine control by multiple neuropeptides secreted by identified neurons. Here, we demonstrate roles for CRF-like diuretic hormone 44 (DH44) and Drosophila melanogaster kinin (Drome-kinin, DK) in desiccation and starvation tolerance. Gene expression and labelled DH44 ligan...