Compartment specific response of antioxidants to drought stress in Arabidopsis

Graphical abstract

Highlights

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  Subcellular H ₂O ₂, ascorbate and glutathione was monitored during drought.

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  Glutathione seems to be involved in signaling drought stress from roots to leaves.

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  Ascorbate and glutathione decreased whereas H ₂O ₂ accumulated during drought.

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  During drought H ₂O ₂ leaked into vacuoles where it was detoxified by ascorbate.

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  The breakdown of the antioxidative system during drought favored ROS accumulation.

Abstract

Compartment specific changes in ascorbate and glutathione contents were studied during drought stress in Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 and in ascorbate and glutathione deficient mutants vtc2-1 and pad2-1, respectively, over a time period of 10 days.

The results of this study revealed a strong decrease of glutathione contents in both mutants (up to 52% in mitochondria of pad2-1 and 40% in nuclei of vtc2-1) at early time points when drought stress was not yet measurable in leaves even though the soil showed a drop in relative water contents. These results indicate that glutathione is used at early time points to signal drought stress from roots to leaves. Such roles could not be confirmed for ascorbate which remained unchanged in most cell compartments until very late stages of drought. During advanced drought stress the strong depletion of ascorbate and glutathione in chloroplasts (up to 50% in Col-0 and vtc2-1) and peroxisomes (up to 56% in Col-0) could be correlated with a strong accumulation of H ₂O ₂. The strong increase of H ₂O ₂ and ascorbate in vacuoles (up to 111%) in wildtype plants indicates that ascorbate plays an important role for the detoxification of ROS in vacuoles during drought stress.