Agrobacterial Plant-transforming Oncogenes: Emerging Complexity of Their Action and a Functional Parallelism with Some Animal Protooncogenes

摘要

Following agrobacterial infection, the Agrobacterium rhizogenes rolA, rolB and rolC genes are transferred to plant genome, causing tumor formation and hairy root disease. The emerging complexity of the rol-gene triggered effects and the involvement of signals generated by these genes in basic processes of cell biology such as calcium and ROS signaling and modulation of expression of calcium-dependent protein kinase genes indicate that the plant oncogenes, like some animal protooncogenes, use sophisticated strategies to affect cell growth and differentiation. Recent data raise the intriguing possibility that some components of plant and animal oncogene signaling pathways share common features. The rol oncogenes are involved in regulation of secondary metabolism performing a function not existing in animals. Studying of processes representing hot spots in animal cell biology, such as the triangle combining the interplay between oncogene expression, ROS production and cell senescence/apoptosis, calcium signaling and processes of protein phosphorylation/dephosphorylation will help in understanding functions of the plant oncogenes. In this respect, new directions of rol-gene studies are highlighted in this article underlying the necessity to use metabolomic, genomic and proteomic approaches in further investigations.