Assessing Gibberellins Oxidase Activity by Anion Exchange/Hydrophobic Polymer Monolithic Capillary Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Bioactive gibberellins (GAs) play a key regulatory role in plant growth and development. In the biosynthesis of GAs, GA3-oxidase catalyzes the final step to produce bioactive GAs. Thus, the evaluation of GA3-oxidase activity is critical for elucidating the regulation mechanism of plant growth controlled by GAs. However, assessing catalytic activity of endogenous GA3-oxidase remains challenging. In the current study, we developed a capillary liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry (cLC-MS) method for the sensitive assay of in-vitro recombinant or endogenous GA3-oxidase by analyzing the catalytic substrates and products of GA3-oxidase (GA₁, GA₄, GA₉, GA₂₀). An anion exchange/hydrophobic poly(2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium-co-divinylbenzene-co-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate)(META-co-DVB-co-EDMA) monolithic column was successfully prepared for the separation of all target GAs. The limits of detection (LODs, Signal/Noise = 3) of GAs were in the range of 0.62–0.90 fmol. We determined the kinetic parameters (K _m) of recombinant GA3-oxidase in Escherichia coli (E. coli) cell lysates, which is consistent with previous reports. Furthermore, by using isotope labeled substrates, we successfully evaluated the activity of endogenous GA3-oxidase that converts GA₉ to GA₄ in four types of plant samples, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the first report for the quantification of the activity of endogenous GA3-oxidase in plant. Taken together, the method developed here provides a good solution for the evaluation of endogenous GA3-oxidase activity in plant, which may promote the in-depth study of the growth regulation mechanism governed by GAs in plant physiology.