Authors: Zongliang Xia Ke Wu Hua Zhang Jianyu Wu Meiping Wang
Publish Date: 2014/07/18
Volume: 33, Issue: 3, Pages: 448-457
Abstract
Acid rain adversely affects maize seed germination by sulfite toxicity Unfortunately the molecular mechanisms underlying seed germination inhibition by sulfite in maize are largely unknown Previously the involvement of sulfite oxidase SO in sulfite detoxification in model plants was characterized Here we characterized Zea mays SO ZmSO in transgenic maize to investigate its role during seed germination upon sulfite exposure ZmSO was responsive to sulfite stress at the transcriptional level during germination of maize seeds Unlike the null mutant atso1 ZmSOoverexpressing transgenic Arabidopsis plants were tolerant to SO2 stress and could effectively rescue the susceptible phenotype of atso1 Silencing of ZmSO could lead to seed germination delay upon sulfite exposure but not under normal conditions interestingly expressions of several seed germinationrelated genes encoding hydrolytic enzymes such as αamylase βamylase and glucosidase were reduced markedly in germinating seeds of ZmSOcompromised lines This indicates that embryonic SO might alleviate the inhibitory effect of toxic sulfite by sulfite oxidation and the modulation of several hydrolytic enzymes during seed germination Collectively these data demonstrate that embryonic SO could be essential for timely seed germination upon sulfite exposure in maize ZmSO might be a promising target for genetic improvement of crops tolerant to acid rain in molecular breeding programsWe thank the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center ABRC for providing Arabidopsis mutant seeds This work was supported financially by the project for excellent young teachers in higher schools of Henan Province No2010GGJS047 and National Natural Science Foundation of China No 30971548
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