Abstract
Leaf senescence is characterized by nitrogen remobilization to developing seeds of annual plants, or surviving organs of perennial species. It has been demonstrated that high carbohydrate levels (carbon “feast”) are associated with the onset of the senescence process. Therefore, the development of model systems allowing the manipulation of leaf carbohydrates constitutes a logical first step in the investigation of processes important during early phases of senescence, such as plastidial protein degradation. In this study, sugar accumulation was induced either by the incubation of excised, mature barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) leaves under relatively strong light, or by the interruption of sieve tubes at the base of the leaf lamina by “steam-girdling”. Accelerated chlorophyll degradation and net proteolysis confirmed successful senescence induction in both model systems, but suggested that girdled leaves are more useful than excised leaves to study proteolysis. Activities or transcript levels of several proteolytic enzymes, including plastidial (aminopeptidases, Clp protease), cytosolic (proteasome) and vacuolar (thiol proteases, an aspartic protease and a serine carboxypeptidase) proteases were clearly induced under these conditions; some of these genes also reacted to other stimuli such as leaf excision. The most interesting finding was the specific induction of a carboxypeptidase gene (cp-mIII) in girdled leaves accumulating high carbohydrate levels. As a previous study from our laboratory, using a genetic approach, has indicated that one or several carboxypeptidases are involved in leaf N remobilization, the detailed characterization of cp-mIII (and, possibly, closely related genes) may considerably improve our understanding of whole-plant N recycling.
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Notes
The ATP binding subunit of the Clp protease has been designated ClpA in E. coli, and ClpC in plants. See Adam et al. (2001) for a recent review
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Acknowledgements
Work presented in this study has been supported by award number 0101019 from the USDA-NRI Competitive Grants Program, and by grant agreement #04–10 from the Montana Board of Research and Commercialization Technology to A.M.F.
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Parrott, D., Yang, L., Shama, L. et al. Senescence is accelerated, and several proteases are induced by carbon “feast” conditions in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) leaves. Planta 222, 989–1000 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-005-0042-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-005-0042-x