Rapid and dynamic change in hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) levels can serve as an important signal to regulate various biological processes in plants. The change is realized by tilting the balance between its production and scavenging rates, in which membrane-associated NADPH oxidases are known to play a crucial role. Functioning independently from NADPH oxidases, glycolate oxidase (GLO) was recently demonstrated as an alternative source for H2O2 production during both gene-for-gene and non-host resistance in plants. In this study, we show that GLO physically interacts with catalase (CAT) in rice leaves, and that the interaction can be deregulated by salicylic acid (SA). Furthermore, the GLO-mediated H2O2 accumulation is synergistically enhanced by SA. Based on the well-known mechanism of substrate channeling in enzyme complexes, SA-induced H2O2 accumulation likely results from SA-induced GLO-CAT dissociation. In the GLO-CAT complex, GLO-mediated H2O2 production during photorespiration is very high, whereas the affinity of CAT for H2O2 (measured Km ≈ 43 mM) is extraordinarily low. This unique combination can further potentiate the increase in H2O2 when GLO is dissociated from CAT. Taken together, we propose that the physical association-dissociation of GLO and CAT, in response to environmental stress or stimuli, seems to serve as a specific mechanism to modulate H2O2 levels in rice.

BackgroundNCA1 (NO CATALASE ACTIVITY 1) was recently identified in Arabidopsis as a chaperone protein to regulate catalase (CAT) activity through maintaining the folding of CAT. The gene exists mainly in higher plants; some plants, such as Arabidopsis, contain only one NCA1 gene, whereas some others such as rice harbor two copies. It is not yet understood whether and how both isoforms have functioned to regulate CAT activity in those two-copy-containing plant species.ResultsIn this study, we first noticed that the spatiotemporal expression patterns of NCA1a and NCA1b were very similar in rice plants. Subsequent BiFC and yeast three-hybrid experiments demonstrated that both NCA1a and NCA1b show mutually exclusive, rather than simultaneous, interaction with CAT. For a further functional analysis, nca1a and nca1b single mutants or double mutants of rice were generated by CRISPR/Cas9. Analysis on these mutants under both normal and salinity stress conditions found that, as compared with WT, either nca1a or nca1b single mutant showed no difference at phenotypes and CAT activities, whereas the double mutants constantly displayed very low CAT activity (about 5%) and serious lesion phenotypes.ConclusionsThese results suggest that NCA1a and NCA1b show mutually exclusive interaction with CAT to regulate CAT activity in a functionally-redundant manner in rice.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12870-019-1707-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.