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Proline induces calcium-mediated oxidative burst and salicylic acid signaling

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Abstract

Although free proline accumulation is a well-documented phenomenon in many plants in response to a variety of environmental stresses, and is proposed to play protective roles, high intracellular proline content, by either exogenous application or endogenous over-production, in the absence of stresses, is found to be inhibitory to plant growth. We have shown here that exogenous application of proline significantly induced intracellular Ca2+ accumulation in tobacco and calcium-dependent ROS production in Arabidopsis seedlings, which subsequently enhanced salicylic acid (SA) synthesis and PR genes expression. This suggested that proline can promote a reaction similar to hypersensitive response during pathogen infection. Other amino acids, such as glutamate, but not arginine and phenylalanine, were also found to be capable of inducing PR gene expression. In addition, proline at concentration as low as 0.5 mM could induce PR gene expression. However, proline could not induce the expression of PDF1.2 gene, the marker gene for jasmonic acid signaling pathway. Furthermore, proline-induced SA production is mediated by NDR1-dependent signaling pathway, but not that mediated by PAD4. Our data provide evidences that exogenous proline, and probably some other amino acids can specifically induce SA signaling and defense response.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the two reviewers for their critical advices that have greatly helped to improve the quality of the manuscript. This work is supported by the Chinese National Key Basic Research Project (#2006CB100100) and the National High Technology and Research Development Program of China (#2007AA091704) from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (#30671133).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Photosynthesis and Environmental Molecular Physiology, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, People’s Republic of China

    Jiugeng Chen, Yueqin Zhang, Cuiping Wang, Weitao Lü, Jing Bo Jin & Xuejun Hua

  2. Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Jiugeng Chen, Yueqin Zhang, Cuiping Wang & Weitao Lü

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  1. Jiugeng Chen
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  2. Yueqin Zhang
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  3. Cuiping Wang
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  4. Weitao Lü
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  5. Jing Bo Jin
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  6. Xuejun Hua
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xuejun Hua.

Additional information

J. Chen and Y. Zhang contributed equally to this work.

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Chen, J., Zhang, Y., Wang, C. et al. Proline induces calcium-mediated oxidative burst and salicylic acid signaling. Amino Acids 40, 1473–1484 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-010-0757-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-010-0757-2

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