Simultaneous determination of shikimic acid, salicylic acid and jasmonic acid in wild and transgenic Nicotiana langsdorffii plants exposed to abiotic stresses

Abstract

The presence and relative concentration of phytohormones may be regarded as a good indicator of an organism's physiological state. The integration of the rolC gene from Agrobacterium rhizogenes and of the rat glucocorticoid receptor (gr) in Nicotiana langsdorffii Weinmann plants has shown to determine various physiological and metabolic effects. The analysis of wild and transgenic N. langsdorffii plants, exposed to different abiotic stresses (high temperature, water deficit, and high chromium concentrations) was conducted, in order to investigate the metabolic effects of the inserted genes in response to the applied stresses. The development of a new analytical procedure was necessary, in order to assure the simultaneous determination of analytes and to obtain an adequately low limit of quantification. For the first time, a sensitive HPLC-HRMS quantitative method for the simultaneous determination of salicylic acid, jasmonic acid and shikimic acid was developed and validated. The method was applied to 80 plant samples, permitting the evaluation of plant stress responses and highlighting some metabolic mechanisms. Salicylic, jasmonic and shikimic acids proved to be suitable for the comprehension of plant stress responses. Chemical and heat stresses showed to induce the highest changes in plant hormonal status, differently affecting plant response. The potential of each genetic modification toward the applied stresses was marked and particularly the resistance of the gr modified plants was evidenced. This work provides new information in the study of N. langsdorffii and transgenic organisms, which could be useful for the further application of these transgenes.

Endogenous Hormones Inhibit Differentiation of Young Ears in Maize (Zea mays L.) Under Heat Stress

“…Endogenous plant hormones are closely related to plant growth, development, and yield formation, and their existence and relative content can be used as an indicator of the physiological state of a plant, particularly as heat stress has the greatest influence on a plant's hormonal state (Scalabrin et al, 2016). Abiotic stress usually causes an increase in ABA content, which is one of the fastest ways to obtain heat tolerance (Yamaguchi-Shinozaki and Shinozaki, 2006;Raghavendra et al, 2010).…”

“…Salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA) are considered to be important signaling substances with respect to plant stress responses, especially those responses that improve the thermotolerance of a crop (Clarke et al, 2009;Lu et al, 2009;Keykha et al, 2014). The content of endogenous SA and JA in plants increases under heat stress (Escandón et al, 2016;Scalabrin et al, 2016). Nevertheless, the relationship between the changes in endogenous hormone content and development of young ears in maize under heat stress is still unclear.…”

Effects of Water Deficit and Heat Stress on Nicotiana langsdorffii Metabolomic Pattern Modified by Insertion of rolD Gene from Agrobacterium rhizogenes

“…In recent decades, research studying the molecular mechanisms of stress responses has gained much more interest and, in parallel, genetic modifications relating to stress tolerance have also shown promising results, which may ultimately be applied to agriculturally and ecologically important plants [11]. Among the genetic modifications studied, the integration of the rat glucocorticoid receptor (GR receptor) has been shown to modify the hormonal pattern of Nicotiana plants [12], leading to higher resistance to nematode infections [13] and against water and chemical stresses in Nicotiana langsdorffii [14,15]. The rol genes from Agrobacterium rhizogenes, when naturally engineered in plants, have been shown to induce multiple physiological and biochemical alterations in transformed plants [16,17], activating secondary metabolic processes and enhancing the plant's response to abiotic and biotic stresses [16][17][18][19].…”

“…An untargeted metabolomics analysis was performed, which permitted us to simultaneously analyze the changes of a high number of compounds and highlight the roles of previously unknown molecules involved in stress response. Moreover, selected phytohormones-salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA)-which have been shown to be important biomarkers in the abiotic stress response of N. langsdorffii [14], were quantitatively determined. Finally, the ionomics profile was traced, in order to obtain additional information about the plant health status and identify the mechanisms underlying the plant stress physiological response.…”

“…This work presents the results of a high-throughput metabolomics and ionomics study of rolD transgenic N. langsdorffii plants exposed to water stress (WS) and high temperature stress (HS). Wild-type plants and GR and rolC genetically modified N. langsdorffii plants have already been considered in previous studies [14,15,23]. Our aim was to identify the influence of abiotic stresses on plants and to highlight the effects of rolD genetic modification on plant stress response.…”