The plant hormone salicylic acid (SA) plays critical roles in plant defense, stress responses, and senescence. Although SA biosynthesis is well understood, the pathways by which SA is catabolized remain elusive. Here we report the identification and characterization of an SA 3-hydroxylase (S3H) involved in SA catabolism during leaf senescence. S3H is associated with senescence and is inducible by SA and is thus a key part of a negative feedback regulation system of SA levels during senescence. The enzyme converts SA (with a K m of 58.29 μM) to both 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,3-DHBA) and 2,5-DHBA in vitro but only 2,3-DHBA in vivo. The s3h knockout mutants fail to produce 2,3-DHBA sugar conjugates, accumulate very high levels of SA and its sugar conjugates, and exhibit a precocious senescence phenotype. Conversely, the gain-of-function lines contain high levels of 2,3-DHBA sugar conjugates and extremely low levels of SA and its sugar conjugates and display a significantly extended leaf longevity. This research reveals an elegant SA catabolic mechanism by which plants regulate SA levels by converting it to 2,3-DHBA to prevent SA overaccumulation. The research also provides strong molecular genetic evidence for an important role of SA in regulating the onset and rate of leaf senescence.aging | benzoic acid | disease resistance | NahG | senescence-associated gene

Elongation of rice internodes is one of the most important agronomic traits, which determines the plant height and underlies the grain yield. It has been shown that the elongation of internodes is under genetic control, and various factors are implicated in the process. Here, we report a detailed characterization of an elongated uppermost internode1 (eui1) mutant, which has been used in hybrid rice breeding. In the eui1-2 mutant, the cell lengths in the uppermost internodes are significantly longer than that of wild type and thus give rise to the elongated uppermost internode. It was found that the level of active gibberellin was elevated in the mutant, whereas its growth in response to gibberellin is similar to that of the wild type, suggesting that the higher level accumulation of gibberellin in the eui1 mutant causes the abnormal elongation of the uppermost internode. Consistently, the expression levels of several genes which encode gibberellin biosynthesis enzymes were altered. We cloned the EUI1 gene, which encodes a putative cytochrome P450 monooxygenase, by map-based cloning and found that EUI1 was weakly expressed in most tissues, but preferentially in young panicles. To confirm its function, transgenic experiments with different constructs of EUI1 were conducted. Overexpression of EUI1 gave rise to the gibberellin-deficient-like phenotypes, which could be partially reversed by supplementation with gibberellin. Furthermore, apart from the alteration of expression levels of the gibberellin biosynthesis genes, accumulation of SLR1 protein was found in the overexpressing transgenic plants, indicating that the expression level of EUI1 is implicated in both gibberellin-mediated SLR1 destruction and a feedback regulation in gibberellin biosynthesis. Therefore, we proposed that EUI1 plays a negative role in gibberellin-mediated regulation of cell elongation in the uppermost internode of rice.

Seed germination plays important roles in the establishment of seedlings and their subsequent growth; however, seed germination is inhibited by salinity, and the inhibitory mechanism remains elusive. Our results indicate that NaCl treatment inhibits rice seed germination by decreasing the contents of bioactive gibberellins (GAs), such as GA1 and GA4, and that this inhibition can be rescued by exogenous bioactive GA application. To explore the mechanism of bioactive GA deficiency, the effect of NaCl on GA metabolic gene expression was investigated, revealing that expression of both GA biosynthetic genes and GA-inactivated genes was up-regulated by NaCl treatment. These results suggest that NaCl-induced bioactive GA deficiency is caused by up-regulated expression of GA-inactivated genes, and the up-regulated expression of GA biosynthetic genes might be a consequence of negative feedback regulation of the bioactive GA deficiency. Moreover, we provide evidence that NaCl-induced bioactive GA deficiency inhibits rice seed germination by decreasing α-amylase activity via down-regulation of α-amylase gene expression. Additionally, exogenous bioactive GA rescues NaCl-inhibited seed germination by enhancing α-amylase activity. Thus, NaCl treatment reduces bioactive GA content through promotion of bioactive GA inactivation, which in turn inhibits rice seed germination by decreasing α-amylase activity via down-regulation of α-amylase gene expression.

High temperature has adverse effects on rice yield and quality. The different influences of night high temperature (NHT) and day high temperature (DHT) on rice quality and seed protein accumulation profiles during grain filling in indica rice '9311' were studied in this research. The treatment temperatures of the control, NHT, and DHT were 28°C/20°C, 27°C/35°C, and 35°C/27°C, respectively, and all the treatments were maintained for 20 days. The result of rice quality analysis indicated that compared with DHT, NHT exerted less effect on head rice rate and chalkiness, whereas greater effect on grain weight. Moreover, the dynamic accumulation change profiles of 61 protein spots, differentially accumulated and successfully identified under NHT and DHT conditions, were performed by proteomic approach. The results also showed that the different suppressed extent of accumulation amount of cyPPDKB might result in different grain chalkiness between NHT and DHT. Most identified isoforms of proteins, such as PPDK and pullulanase, displayed different accumulation change patterns between NHT and DHT. In addition, compared with DHT, NHT resulted in the unique accumulation patterns of stress and defense proteins. Taken together, the mechanisms of seed protein accumulation profiles induced by NHT and DHT during grain filling should be different in rice, and the potential molecular basis is discussed in this study.

Cytoplasmic male sterile (CMS) rice Zhenshan 97A (ZS97A) has been widely used in hybrid rice production in China. However, ZS97A suffers from serious panicle enclosure, which blocks normal pollination and greatly reduces seed production of hybrid rice. Little is known about the cause of panicle closure in ZS97A. In this study, it was found that the occurrence of cytoplasmic male sterility caused a deficiency of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) in ZS97A panicles, and less IAA was provided to the uppermost internode (UI). Further, it was found that the decreased panicle-derived IAA caused a gibberellin A(1) (GA(1)) deficiency in the UI by the down-regulation of OsGA3ox2 transcript level. Reduced GA(1) level in the UI led to decreases of both cell number and cell elongation, resulting in a shortened UI. The shortened UI was unable to push the panicle out of the flag leaf sheath that remained normal, which resulted in panicle enclosure in ZS97A. These findings suggest that decreased panicle-derived IAA reduces the GA(1) level in the UI, causing panicle enclosure in CMS rice ZS97A.