Dark-induced Reactive Oxygen Species Accumulation and Inhibition by Gibberellins: Towards Inhibition of Postharvest Senescence
Authors: Friedman Haya , Watkins Chris , Lurie Susan , Gan Susheng 
Published: January 2022

Dark-induced senescence could pose a major problem in export of various crops including cuttings. The assumption of this work was that ROS which is increased at a specific organelle can serve as a signal for activation of cell senescence program. Hormones which reduce senescence in several crops like gibberellic acid (GA) and possibly cytokinin (CK) may reduce senescence by inhibiting this signal. In this study we worked on Pelargonium cuttings as well as Arabidopsis rosette. In Pelargonium the increase in ROS occurred concomitantly with increase in two SAGs, and the increase persisted in isolated chloroplasts. In Arabidopsis we used two recentlydeveloped technologies to examine these hypotheses; one is a transcriptome approach which, on one hand, enabled to monitor expression of genes within the antioxidants network, and on the other hand, determine organelle-specific ROS-related transcriptome footprint. This last approach was further developed to an assay (so called ROSmeter) for determination of the ROS-footprint resulting from defined ROS stresses. The second approach involved the monitoring of changes in the redox poise in different organelles by measuring fluorescence ratio of redox-sensitive GFP (roGFP) directed to plastids, mitochondria, peroxisome and cytoplasm. By using the roGFP we determined that the mitochondria environment is oxidized as early as the first day under darkness, and this is followed by oxidation of the peroxisome on the second day and the cytoplast on the third day. The plastids became less oxidized at the first day of darkness and this was followed by a gradual increase in oxidation. The results with the ROS-related transcriptome footprint showed early changes in ROS-related transcriptome footprint emanating from mitochondria and peroxisomes. Taken together these results suggest that the first ROS-related change occurred in mitochondria and peroxisomes. The analysis of antioxidative gene’s network did not yield any clear results about the changes occurring in antioxidative status during extended darkness. Nevertheless, there is a reduction in expression of many of the plastids antioxidative related genes. This may explain a later increase in the oxidation poise of the plastids, occurring concomitantly with increase in cell death. Gibberellic acid (GA) prevented senescence in Pelargonium leaves; however, in Arabidopsis it did not prevent chlorophyll degradation, but prevented upregulation of SAGs (Apendix Fig. 1). Gibberellic acid prevented in Pelargonium the increase in ROS in chloroplast, and we suggested that this prevents the destruction of the chloroplasts and hence, the tissue remains green. In Arabidopsis, reduction in endogenous GA and BA are probably not causing dark-induced senescence, nevertheless, these materials have some effect at preventing senescence. Neither GA nor CK had any effect on transcriptome footprint related to ROS in the various organelles, however while GA reduced expression of few general ROS-related genes, BA mainly prevented the decrease in chloroplasts genes. Taken together, GA and BA act by different pathways to inhibit senescence and GA might act via ROS reduction. Therefore, application of both hormones may act synergistically to prevent darkinduced senescence of various crops.