Sulfide promotes tolerance to drought through protein persulfidation in Arabidopsis

Abstract

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a signaling molecule that regulates essential plant processes. In this study, the role of H2S during drought was analyzed, focused on the underlying mechanism. Pretreatments with H2S before imposing drought on plants significantly improved the characteristic stressed phenotypes under drought and decreases the levels of typical biochemical stress markers such as, anthocyanin, proline and hydrogen peroxide. H2S also regulated drought-responsive genes, amino acid metabolism, and repressed drought-induced bulk autophagy and protein ubiquitination, demonstrating the protective effect of H2S pretreatments. Quantitative proteomic analysis identified 887 significantly different persulfidated proteins in plants under control and drought stress. Bioinformatic analyses of the proteins more persulfidated in drought revealed that the most enriched biological processes were cellular response to oxidative stress and hydrogen peroxide catabolism. Protein degradation, abiotic stress responses, and the phenylpropanoid pathway were also highlighted, suggesting the importance of persulfidation to cope with drought-induced stress. Our findings emphasize the role of H2S as a promoter of enhanced tolerance to drought, enabling plants to respond more rapidly and efficiently. Furthermore, the main role of protein persulfidation in alleviating ROS accumulation and balancing redox homeostasis under drought stress is highlighted.

Proline, Cysteine and Branched-Chain Amino Acids in Abiotic Stress Response of Land Plants and Microalgae

“…This whole model was very recently corroborated by Jurado-Flores et al [105]: the authors showed that the pre-treatment of Arabidopsis plants with H 2 S donors significantly diminishes the levels of several drought biomarkers (such as proline, H 2 O 2 and anthocyanins), but they also highlighted the H 2 S-mediated protein persulfidation as a crucial molecular defense mechanism against drought stress.…”

The CBS/H2S signalling pathway regulated by the carbon repressor CreA promotes cellulose utilization in Ganoderma lucidum

“…In addition, these various mechanisms by which intracellular H 2 S affects physiological processes often exist simultaneously. For instance, in plants, H 2 S not only regulated transcription levels of drought-responsive genes but also induced the persulfidation level of proteins, which involved in cellular response to oxidative stress, hydrogen peroxide catabolism and so on, to involve in drought stress responses 43 . Therefore, further research is needed to clarify regulatory mechanisms of H 2 S on cellulase activity in G. lucidum .…”

Hydrogen Sulfide in the Oxidative Stress Response of Plants: Crosstalk with Reactive Oxygen Species

“…For example, under salt stress, H 2 S triggers PMA1 to sustain the K + /Na + balance by means of persulfidation [11]; nitrate reductase 2 (NIA2) persulfidation is involved in OsLCD1-regulated drought tolerance in rice [22]. Proteomic analysis showed that the enriched motif containing the most persulfidated proteins (11) is involved in the cellular response to oxidative stress in Arabidopsis under drought stress (Table 1), containing numerous antioxidant enzymes [47]. A similar situation occurs in tomato, where, in response to oxidative stress induced by the phytotoxicity of CuO NPs, H 2 S responds to stress by nondirectionally regulating the activities of POD, CAT, and APX by means of persulfidation [48]; these effects seem to be the consequence of increased ROS contents, especially that of H 2 O 2 .…”