Overexpression of Ferredoxin, PETF, Enhances Tolerance to Heat Stress in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Abstract

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by plants in adverse environments can cause damage to organelles and trigger cell death. Removal of excess ROS can be achieved through the ascorbate scavenger pathway to prevent plant cell death. The amount of this scavenger can be regulated by ferredoxin (FDX). Chloroplastic FDXs are electron transfer proteins that perform in distributing photosynthetic reducing power. In this study, we demonstrate that overexpression of the endogenous photosynthetic FDX gene, PETF, in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii could raise the level of reduced ascorbate and diminish H2O2 levels under normal growth conditions. Furthermore, the overexpressing PETF transgenic Chlamydomonas lines produced low levels of H2O2 and exhibited protective effects that were observed through decreased chlorophyll degradation and increased cell survival under heat-stress conditions. The findings of this study suggest that overexpression of PETF can increase the efficiency of ROS scavenging in chloroplasts to confer heat tolerance. The roles of PETF in the downregulation of the ROS level offer a method for potentially improving the tolerance of crops against heat stress.

Exogenous melatonin improves salt tolerance in tomato by regulating photosynthetic electron flux and the ascorbate–glutathione cycle

“…In addition, Chls, Chl a and Chl b contents were much higher when plants were treated with MT than under normal conditions, suggesting that MT may facilitate the chloroplast gene expression and protein turnover to promote the accumulation of chlorophyll (Suo et al 2015). The results are consistent with a recent study on tomato showing that MT increases ferredoxin, which promotes the synthesis of GSH and inhibits the degradation of Chl (Lin et al 2013;Wei et al 2015;Siddiqui et al 2019). However, further research into the connection between the photosynthetic machinery and chlorophyll metabolic pathways is needed to further understand under NaCl stress.…”

Melatonin enhances plant growth and abiotic stress tolerance in soybean plants

“…9 ). Ferredoxin regulates the amount of reduced ascorbate and protects chlorophyll from degradation ( Lin et al , 2013 ). Low expression of PetF may affect the scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated during photosynthesis or as a result of salt stress, consistent with the growth retardation and H 2 O 2 accumulation in salt stress ( Fig.…”

De novo transcriptome sequencing of genome analysis provides insights into Solidago canadensis invasive capability via photosynthesis

“…Therefore, the competitive advantage of S. canadensis may be due to three factors: (i) the utilization of light for electron transport, especially in PsaG, PetE, Lhca1, Lhca2, and Lhca4 (Brown et al 2005;Ozawa et al 2010;Xing et al 2016); (ii) several key genes which associate with oxidative phosphorylation pathway which were observed to be up-regulated, such as F-ATPase (Allen 2003); (iii) the adaptation of changing environment, e.g. the overexpression of PetF could increase the efficiency of reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging in chloroplasts to confer heat tolerance (Lin et al 2013).…”