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Partial suppression of l-galactono-1,4-lactone dehydrogenase causes significant reduction in leaf water loss through decreasing stomatal aperture size in Arabidopsis

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Abstract

In higher plants, l-galactono-1,4-lactone dehydrogenase (GLDH) participates in the biosynthesis of ascorbic acid (AsA) and the assembly of mitochondrial respiratory complex I. In this work, homozygous Arabidopsis thaliana mutant (gldhRNAi3-11) plants with approximately 40 % of the GLDH activity of wild type (WT) controls were developed by RNA interference, and were found to be viable under standard laboratory conditions. Compared with WT controls, gldhRNAi3-11 plants showed about 20 % decrease in the contents of reduced AsA and total AsA. Like previously recorded for several AsA-deficient mutants (vtc1-1, vtc2-1, vtc3-1 and vtc4-1) grown under long day (LD) conditions, gldhRNAi3-11 plants exhibited an early flowering phenotype in LD environment. Interestingly, relative to WT control, vtc1-1 and vtc4-1, gldhRNAi3-11 had significantly lower leaf water loss rate. Further analysis indicated that reduced stomatal aperture size was likely responsible for the lower water loss displayed by gldhRNAi3-11 leaves. Thus, our work demonstrates that partial suppression of GLDH activity confers significant reduction in leaf water loss through decreasing stomatal aperture size in Arabidopsis. The novel phenotypes displayed by gldhRNAi3-11 plants, the new insights obtained by this work, and their implications on further study of GLDH function in higher plants are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Professor Peter M. Waterhouse (CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia) for permission to use the pKANNIBAL and pART27 vectors. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 30821061) (to D.W.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Bin Li, Yanping Yang, Chunmei Yu, Shiming Li, Jing Chen, Xin Liu, Huanju Qin & Daowen Wang

  2. The National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, NFCRI, MOA Key Laboratory of Soybean Biology (Beijing), Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 12 Zhongguancun South Street, Beijing, 100081, China

    Bin Li

  3. Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100039, China

    Bin Li, Yanping Yang, Chunmei Yu, Shiming Li & Jing Chen

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  1. Bin Li
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  2. Yanping Yang
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  3. Chunmei Yu
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  4. Shiming Li
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  6. Xin Liu
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  7. Huanju Qin
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  8. Daowen Wang
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Correspondence to Daowen Wang.

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Li, B., Yang, Y., Yu, C. et al. Partial suppression of l-galactono-1,4-lactone dehydrogenase causes significant reduction in leaf water loss through decreasing stomatal aperture size in Arabidopsis . Plant Growth Regul 72, 171–179 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-013-9849-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-013-9849-9

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