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Exogenous application of 5-aminolevulinic acid alleviated damage to wheat chloroplast ultrastructure under drought stress by transcriptionally regulating genes correlated with photosynthesis and chlorophyll biosynthesis

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Abstract

5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA), as a precursor of plant chlorophyll synthesis, can alleviate damage to photosynthesis and thus improve the drought resistance of plants, but the mechanism behind this is still obscure, especially its correlation with functional gene transcription and noncoding RNA regulation. The leaves were collected from Aikang-58 wheat seedlings subjected to drought stress and exogenous ALA application for ultrastructure observation and gene transcription analysis. The results indicated that drought stress attenuated the photosynthesis evidenced by the decrease of net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and stomatal conductance (gs), damaged the chloroplast ultrastructure by destroying the thylakoid matrix, degrading the chlorophyll, and leading to lipid peroxidation of the cells due to the toxicity of free radicals, causing lipids to dissociate and combine with osmium acid to form plastoglobuli. Under drought stress, exogenous ALA pretreatment can increase the transcript abundance of the chlorophyll synthesis-related genes. Moreover, exogenous ALA increased psb28 transcript abundance under drought stress, to alleviate the damage to the chloroplast ultrastructure and photosynthesis. Our data revealed the possible gene transcriptional regulation patterns in response to drought stress and exogenous ALA alleviation.

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Abbreviations

ALA:

5-Aminolevulinic acid

ANOVA:

One-way analysis of variance

CHLS :

Chl synthetase

CK:

Control

C T :

Cycle threshold

D + A:

Treatment with ALA without distilled water

FC :

Ferrochelatase

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

g s :

Stomatal conductance

MCD :

Magnesium chelatase D

MCH :

Magnesium chelatase H

MCI :

Magnesium chelatase I

MPM :

Mg-protoporphyrin IX methyltransferase

P n :

Net photosynthetic rate

PO :

Pchlide oxidoreductase

PPFD:

Photosynthetic photon flux density

PPO :

Protoporphyrinogen oxidase

PSII:

Photosystem II

rcaA :

Rubisco activase A subunits

rcaB :

Rubisco activase B subunits

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Acknowledgements

We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China—Henan Joint Fund (Grant No. U1704103) and the Sci-tech Innovation Foundation of Henan Agricultural University (Grant No. KJCX2016A06), for supporting the research. The funding bodies played no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, Henan Agricultural University, 63 Nongye Rd., Zhengzhou, 450002, Henan, China

    Yuexia Wang, Xinyi Chen, Xiaoyan Li, Yuhang Song, Jianan Wang & Ruili Xue

  2. Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, Purdue University, 915 W State St, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Jing Huang

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  1. Yuexia Wang
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Wang, Y., Chen, X., Li, X. et al. Exogenous application of 5-aminolevulinic acid alleviated damage to wheat chloroplast ultrastructure under drought stress by transcriptionally regulating genes correlated with photosynthesis and chlorophyll biosynthesis. Acta Physiol Plant 44, 12 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-021-03347-6

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