Chlorophyllase, a Common Plant Hydrolase Enzyme with a Long History, Is Still a Puzzle.

Xueyun Hu,Qingsong Jiao,Ting Jia,Imran Khan,Ahmad Zada

doi:10.3390/genes12121871

Abstract

Chlorophyllase (Chlase, CLH) is one of the earliest discovered enzymes present in plants and green algae. It was long considered to be the first enzyme involved in chlorophyll (Chl) degradation, while strong evidence showed that it is not involved in Chl breakdown during leaf senescence. On the other hand, it is possible that CLH is involved in Chl breakdown during fruit ripening. Recently, it was discovered that Arabidopsis CLH1 is located in developing chloroplasts but not in mature chloroplasts, and it plays a role in protecting young leaves from long-term photodamage by catalysing Chl turnover in the photosystem II (PSII) repair cycle. However, there remain other important questions related to CLH. In this article, we briefly reviewed the research progress on CLH and listed the main unanswered questions related to CLH for further study.

Highlights

International Research Laboratory of Agriculture and Agri-Product Safety of the Ministry of Education of Laboratory of Plant Functional Genomics of the Ministry of Education, Yangzhou University, College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China; Abstract: Chlorophyllase (Chlase, CLH) is one of the earliest discovered enzymes present in plants and green algae
Chlorophyllase (Chlase) is an enzyme that catalyses the conversion of chlorophyll (Chl) to chlorophyllide (Chlide) by removing the phytol side chain
If CLHs are involved in Chl degradation, their knockout mutant plants should show a stay-green phenotype during dark-induced leaf senescence, as inferred from the phenotype of plants lacking one of the other Chl degradation enzymes [23,36]

Summary

Introduction

International Research Laboratory of Agriculture and Agri-Product Safety of the Ministry of Education of Laboratory of Plant Functional Genomics of the Ministry of Education, Yangzhou University, College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China; Abstract: Chlorophyllase (Chlase, CLH) is one of the earliest discovered enzymes present in plants and green algae. Chlase was considered the first enzyme for catalysing Chl degradation in senescent leaves [10,11,12]. If CLHs are involved in Chl degradation, their knockout mutant plants should show a stay-green phenotype during dark-induced leaf senescence, as inferred from the phenotype of plants lacking one of the other Chl degradation enzymes [23,36].

Results

Conclusion