Abstract
As a gaseous biological signaling molecule, nitric oxide (NO) regulates many physiological processes in plants. Over the last decades, this low molecular weight compound has been identified as a key signaling molecule to regulate plant stress responses, and also plays an important role in plant development. However, elucidation of the molecular mechanisms for NO in leaf development has so far been limited due to a lack of mutant resources. Here, we employed the NO-deficient mutant nia1nia2 to examine the role of NO in leaf development. We have found that nia1nia2 mutant plants displayed very different leaf phenotypes as compared to wild type Col-0. Further studies have shown that reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels are higher in nia1nia2 mutant plants. Interestingly, ROS-related enzymes ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalases (CAT), and peroxidases (POD) have shown decreases in their activities. Our transcriptome data have revealed that the ROS synthesis gene RBOHD was enhanced in nia1nia2 mutants and the photosynthesis-related pathway was impaired, which suggests that NO is required for chloroplast development and leaf development. Together, these results imply that NO plays a significant role in plant leaf development by regulating ROS homeostasis.
Highlights
Leaves are critical organs for the survival of plants as they are the primary source of photosynthesis-derived energy and provide a large area for direct interaction with the environment [1,2]
In order to investigate whether differences in size and shape of nitric oxide (NO)-deficient mutant nia1nia2 leaves are due to cell proliferation, expansion, or both, we examined the cell number and cell size within adaxial and abaxial epidermal cells of the third and fourth rosette leaves of 3- and 5-week-old plants
Little is known about the role of NO in leaf development
Summary
Leaves are critical organs for the survival of plants as they are the primary source of photosynthesis-derived energy and provide a large area for direct interaction with the environment [1,2]. Increasing reports suggest that leaf shape development is regulated through the modification of redox status within plant cells [17] In this context, Arabidopsis mutants with higher ROS production (such as kua1) and higher NO generation (such as nox and gsnor1-3) have smaller leaves as compared to wild type plants [8,18], which strongly suggests that redox signals play a central role in plant leaf development. ERresius lntsot much difference in leaf shape or size of 3-week-old nia1nia plants as compared to wild type Col-0 (Figure 1A). Nia1nia Mutant Plants Have Smaller Leaves as Compared to Wild Type Col-0 due to Having Lesser Number of Cells and Reduced Cell Size in Their Leaves. Error bars represent SD from eight replicates. *, p < 0.05 (Student’s t-test)
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