Developmental Stages Affect the Capacity to Produce Aldehyde Green Leaf Volatiles in Zea mays and Vigna radiata.

Jurgen Engelberth,Marie Engelberth

doi:10.3390/plants11040526

Jurgen Engelberth, Marie Engelberth

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11040526

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Abstract

Green leaf volatiles (GLV) are essentially produced by the green parts of plants upon damage. GLV are mainly 6-carbon molecules derived from fatty acids through the hydroperoxide lyase pathway and can serve as airborne signals to other parts of the same plant and to neighboring plants and help to protect them against biotic and abiotic stresses. However, while the biosynthesis is generally well understood, little is known about how plants regulate the production of these important signaling molecules. To better understand how the developmental stage of the plant affects aldehyde GLV production, we selected Zea mays and Vigna radiata to represent mono- and dicot plants for this analysis. We show that the capacity to produce aldehyde GLV strongly depends on the developmental stage of the plant. Major differences in the quantity, and in the quality of these compounds were found, not only in leaves from different developmental stages, but also in different areas within a leaf. The results demonstrate that the capacity to produce GLV varies significantly within a plant and the potential implications of these findings are discussed.

Highlights

Green leaf volatiles (GLV), the typical “green” smell of plants, are rapidly released by plants upon mechanical damage in large quantities, which can be caused by insect herbivore, certain pathogens, as well as by abiotic stresses including cold, heat, and drought [1,2]
V2 stage (Figure to gain further insights into the maize seedling at the V2 stage (Figure 1A) to gain further insights into the generalgeneral distridistribution the capacity to produce the of the leaf we blade, wethe found the bution of theof capacity to produce
GLVindicate for the significant comparisondifferences of segments within one GLV for the comparison of segments within one leaf. Since these aldehyde GLV levels in the mid-leaf segments were significantly higher. Since these aldehyde GLV levels in the mid-leaf segments were significantly higher than those found in 10-day-old seedlings, we performed than those found in 10-day-old seedlings, we performed an analysis of the mid-leaf sections during the development of a maize seedling over a an analysis of the mid-leaf sections during the development of a maize seedling over a period of 20 days to test for qualitative and quantitative changes during this time (Figure period of 20 days to test for qualitative and quantitative changes during this time (Figure 3)

Summary

Introduction

Green leaf volatiles (GLV), the typical “green” smell of plants, are rapidly released by plants upon mechanical damage in large quantities, which can be caused by insect herbivore, certain pathogens, as well as by abiotic stresses including cold, heat, and drought [1,2]. There, GLV can activate specific defense responses, which can either provide direct protection, or prepare effectively against the impending potential for damage by biotic and abiotic stressors [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. While this was first demonstrated for maize [10], it has since been shown for many other plants species [1,2]. The resulting hydroperoxy fatty acid is cleaved by the enzyme hydroperoxide lyase (HPL)

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