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Regulation of sulfate assimilation in Physcomitrella patens: mosses are different!

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Abstract

Sulfur is an essential nutrient, taken up as sulfate from soil, reduced and incorporated into bioorganic compounds in plant cells. The pathway of sulfate assimilation is highly regulated in a demand-driven manner in seed plants. To test the evolutionary conservation of the regulatory mechanisms, we analyzed regulation of the pathway in the model for basal plants, the moss Physcomitrella patens. While in Arabidopsis the key enzyme of sulfate assimilation, adenosine 5′-phosphosulfate reductase (APR), is feedback repressed by thiols and induced by reduced levels of glutathione, in P. patens such regulation does not occur. The control of the pathway was not moved to other components as these conditions affected neither mRNA accumulation of other genes of sulfate assimilation nor sulfate uptake. Other treatments known to regulate APR, O-acetylserine, cadmium and sulfur deficiency affected APR transcript levels, but not enzyme activity. It appears that the sulfate assimilation pathway in P. patens is much more robust than in seed plants. Thus, the regulatory networks controlling the pathway have probably evolved only later in the evolution of the seed plants after separation of the bryophytes.

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Abbreviations

APR:

Adenosine 5′-phosphosulfate reductase

ATPS:

ATP sulfurylase

BSO:

Buthionine sulfoximine

GSH:

Glutathione

OAS:

O-acetylserine

SiR:

Sulfite reductase

SULTR:

Sulfate transporter

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Acknowledgments

The research in SK’s laboratory is supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry/Biotechnology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Kurt-Mothes-Str. 3, 06120, Halle (Saale), Germany

    Corinna Hermsen, Dirk Wesenberg & Gerd-Joachim Krauss

  2. John Innes Centre, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK

    Corinna Hermsen, Anna Koprivova, Colette Matthewman & Stanislav Kopriva

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  1. Corinna Hermsen
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  2. Anna Koprivova
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  4. Dirk Wesenberg
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  5. Gerd-Joachim Krauss
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  6. Stanislav Kopriva
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Correspondence to Stanislav Kopriva.

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Hermsen, C., Koprivova, A., Matthewman, C. et al. Regulation of sulfate assimilation in Physcomitrella patens: mosses are different!. Planta 232, 461–470 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-010-1190-1

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