title: Enhancement of oxidative and drought tolerance in Arabidopsis by overaccumulation of antioxidant flavonoids.
abstract: The notion that plants use specialized metabolism to protect against environmental stresses needs to be experimentally proven by addressing the question of whether stress tolerance by specialized metabolism is directly due to metabolites such as flavonoids. We report that flavonoids with radical scavenging activity mitigate against oxidative and drought stress in Arabidopsis thaliana. Metabolome and transcriptome profiling and experiments with oxidative and drought stress in wild-type, single overexpressors of MYB12/PFG1 (PRODUCTION OF FLAVONOL GLYCOSIDES1) or MYB75/PAP1 (PRODUCTION OF ANTHOCYANIN PIGMENT1), double overexpressors of MYB12 and PAP1, transparent testa4 (tt4) as a flavonoid-deficient mutant, and flavonoid-deficient MYB12 or PAP1 overexpressing lines (obtained by crossing tt4 and the individual MYB overexpressor) demonstrated that flavonoid overaccumulation was key to enhanced tolerance to such stresses. Antioxidative activity assays using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, methyl viologen, and 3,3'-diaminobenzidine clearly showed that anthocyanin overaccumulation with strong in vitro antioxidative activity mitigated the accumulation of reactive oxygen species in vivo under oxidative and drought stress. These data confirm the usefulness of flavonoids for enhancing both biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in crops.
authors.affiliation: RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, 230-0045, Japan; Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Chuo-ku, Chiba, 260-8675, Japan; CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi, Saitama, 332-0012, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nakabayashi
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yonekura-Sakakibara
authors.forename: Kaoru
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Urano
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Tomoko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nishizawa
authors.forename: Fumio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Matsuda
authors.forename: Mikiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kojima
authors.forename: Hitoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sakakibara
authors.forename: Kazuo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shinozaki
authors.forename: Anthony J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Michael
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tohge
authors.forename: Mami
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yamazaki
authors.forename: Kazuki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saito
mesh_terms: D000872:Anthocyanins / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D000975:Antioxidants / Q000378:metabolism*; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D055864:Droughts; D005419:Flavonoids / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D015870:Gene Expression; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018546:Hypocotyl / Q000235:genetics / Q000469:parasitology / Q000502:physiology; D055442:Metabolome; D055432:Metabolomics; D009154:Mutation; D018384:Oxidative Stress; D000073718:Pancreatitis-Associated Proteins; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species / Q000378:metabolism; D036226:Seedlings / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D000872:Anthocyanins; D000975:Antioxidants; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; D005419:Flavonoids; D000073718:Pancreatitis-Associated Proteins; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species; D014157:Transcription Factors; C504539:MYB12 protein, Arabidopsis; C502612:AT1G56650 protein, Arabidopsis; C000612141:REG3A protein, human
keywords: anthocyanins; flavonols; metabolomics; stress tolerance; transcriptomics