Abstract
Constant global warming is one of the most detrimental environmental factors for agriculture causing significant losses in productivity as heat stress (HS) conditions damage plant growth and reproduction. In flowering plants such as tomato, HS has drastic repercussions on development and functionality of male reproductive organs and pollen. Response mechanisms to HS in tomato anthers and pollen have been widely investigated by transcriptomics; on the contrary, exhaustive proteomic evidences are still lacking. In this context, a differential proteomic study was performed on tomato anthers collected from two genotypes (thermo-tolerant and thermo-sensitive) to explore stress response mechanisms and identify proteins possibly associated to thermo-tolerance. Results showed that HS mainly affected energy and amino acid metabolism and nitrogen assimilation and modulated the expression of proteins involved in assuring protein quality and ROS detoxification. Moreover, proteins potentially associated to thermo-tolerant features, such as glutamine synthetase, S-adenosylmethionine synthase and polyphenol oxidase, were identified.
Highlights
High temperature can be considered one of the most detrimental environmental factors for agriculture as it affects plant growth and reproduction leading to significant losses in productivity [1]
Image analysis led to detect 106 spots whose relative intensities varied in the 2-DE maps obtained from the analysis of the proteomes extracted from SAL and M82 anthers grown under controlled temperature conditions (CC) and high temperature conditions (HT) (Fig 1)
Transcriptional analysis in tomato led to recognize that genes encoding heat stress transcription factors, heat shock proteins as well as proteins involved in reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenger processes participate to the molecular mechanisms underlying response to HS and thermo-tolerance in reproductive tissues [10,11,15]
Summary
High temperature can be considered one of the most detrimental environmental factors for agriculture as it affects plant growth and reproduction leading to significant losses in productivity [1]. This is relevant as global warming is a constant increasing phenomenon since 1900 and plants exhibiting thermo-tolerant traits, through the modulation of specific molecular mechanisms to prevent or repair heat damage, are very likely to acquire relevant agricultural value. Effects of heat stress (HS), which include transitory or constant high temperature exposure, encompass changes in plant morphology, physiology and biochemistry involving a re-organization of cell structure and metabolism and alterations in the accumulation of several proteins and primary and secondary metabolites [2,3,4].
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