Two Rubisco activase isoforms may play different roles in photosynthetic heat acclimation in the rice plant |
| |
Authors: | Dun Wang Xiao‐Fei Li Zheng‐Jian Zhou Xu‐Ping Feng Wan‐Jun Yang De‐An Jiang |
| |
Institution: | State Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China |
| |
Abstract: | Studies on some plant species have shown that increasing the growth temperature gradually or pretreating with high temperature can lead to obvious photosynthetic acclimation to high temperature. To test whether this acclimation arises from heat adaptation of ribulose 1,5‐bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco, EC 4.1.1.39) activation mediated by Rubisco activase (RCA), gene expression of RCA large isoform (RCAL) and RCA small isoform (RCAS) in rice was determined using a 4‐day heat stress treatment 40/30°C (day/night)] followed by a 3‐day recovery under control conditions 30/22°C (day/night)]. The heat stress significantly induced the expression of RCAL as determined by both mRNA and protein levels. Correlative analysis indicated that RCAS protein content was extremely significantly related to Rubisco initial activity and net photosynthetic rate (Pn) under both heat stress and normal conditions. Immunoblot analysis of the Rubisco–RCA complex revealed that the ratio of RCAL to Rubisco increased markedly in heat‐acclimated rice leaves. Furthermore, transgenic rice plants expressing enhanced amounts of RCAL exhibited higher thermotolerance in Pn and Rubisco initial activity and grew better at high temperature than wild‐type (WT) plants and transgenic rice plants expressing enhanced amounts of RCAS. Under normal conditions, the transgenic rice plants expressing enhanced amounts of RCAS showed higher Pn and produced more biomass than transgenic rice plants expressing enhanced amounts of RCAL and wild‐type plants. Together, these suggest that the heat‐induced RCAL may play an important role in photosynthetic acclimation to moderate heat stress in vivo, while RCAS plays a major role in maintaining Rubisco initial activity under normal conditions. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|
|