Reversible redox post-translational modifications such as oxido-reduction of disulfide bonds, S-nitrosylation, and S-glutathionylation, play a prominent role in the regulation of cell metabolism and signaling in all organisms. These modifications are mainly controlled by members of the thioredoxin and glutaredoxin families. Early studies in photosynthetic organisms have identified the Calvin–Benson cycle, the photosynthetic pathway responsible for carbon assimilation, as a redox regulated process. Indeed, 4 out of 11 enzymes of the cycle were shown to have a low activity in the dark and to be activated in the light through thioredoxin-dependent reduction of regulatory disulfide bonds. The underlying molecular mechanisms were extensively studied at the biochemical and structural level. Unexpectedly, recent biochemical and proteomic studies have suggested that all enzymes of the cycle and several associated regulatory proteins may undergo redox regulation through multiple redox post-translational modifications including glutathionylation and nitrosylation. The aim of this review is to detail the well-established mechanisms of redox regulation of Calvin–Benson cycle enzymes as well as the most recent reports indicating that this pathway is tightly controlled by multiple interconnected redox post-translational modifications. This redox control is likely allowing fine tuning of the Calvin–Benson cycle required for adaptation to varying environmental conditions, especially during responses to biotic and abiotic stresses.

Thioredoxins (TRXs) are small disulfide oxidoreductases of ca. 12 kDa found in all free living organisms. In plants, two chloroplastic TRXs, named TRX f and TRX m, were originally identified as light dependent regulators of several carbon metabolism enzymes including Calvin cycle enzymes. The availability of genome sequences revealed an unsuspected multiplicity of TRXs in photosynthetic eukaryotes, including new chloroplastic TRX types. Moreover, proteomic approaches and focused studies allowed identification of 90 potential chloroplastic TRX targets. Lately, recent studies suggest the existence of a complex interplay between TRXs and other redox regulators such as glutaredoxins (GRXs) or glutathione. The latter is involved in a post-translational modification, named glutathionylation that could be controlled by GRXs. Glutathionylation appears to specifically affect the activity of TRX f and other chloroplastic enzymes and could thereby constitute a previously undescribed regulatory mechanism of photosynthetic metabolism under oxidative stress. After summarizing the initial studies on TRX f and TRX m, this review will focus on the most recent developments with special emphasis on the contributions of genomics and proteomics to the field of TRXs. Finally, new emerging interactions with other redox signaling pathways and perspectives for future studies will also be discussed.

Aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs inhibit cell proliferation and induce apoptosis in various cancer cell lines, which is considered to be an important mechanism for their anti-tumor activity and prevention of carcinogenesis. However, the molecular mechanisms through which these compounds induce apoptosis are not well understood. Here we have found that aspirin treatment of the mouse Neuro 2a cells impaired the proteasome function and caused severe mitochondrial abnormalities. Treatment with aspirin lead to a dose-and time-dependent decrease in proteasome activity and an increase in the accumulation of ubiquitylated proteins in the cells, which correlated with its effect on cell death. Aspirin exposure also resulted in an increase in the half-life of pd1EGFP, a model substrate of proteasome, as well as various intracellular substrates like Bax, IB-␣, p53, and p27 kip1 . Aspirin-induced proteasomal malfunction might be responsible, at least in part, for the downregulation of NF-B activity and neurite outgrowth. Finally, we have shown that aspirin treatment caused changes in the mitochondrial membrane potential, release of cytochrome c from mitochondria, and activation of caspase-9 and -3, which could be because of the proteasomal dysfunction.

Thioredoxin f (TRXf) is a key factor in the redox regulation of chloroplastic carbon fixation enzymes, whereas glutathione is an important thiol buffer whose status is modulated by stress conditions. Here, we report specific glutathionylation of TRXf. A conserved cysteine is present in the TRXf primary sequence, in addition to its two active-site cysteines. The additional cysteine becomes glutathionylated when TRXf is exposed to oxidized glutathione or to reduced glutathione plus oxidants. No other chloroplastic TRX, from either Arabidopsis or Chlamydomonas, is glutathionylated under these conditions. Glutathionylation decreases the ability of TRXf to be reduced by ferredoxin-thioredoxin reductase and results in impaired light activation of target enzymes in a reconstituted thylakoid system. Although several mammalian proteins undergoing glutathionylation have already been identified, TRXf is among the first plant proteins found to undergo this posttranslational modification. This report suggests that a crosstalk between the TRX and glutathione systems mediates a previously uncharacterized form of redox signaling in plants in stress conditions. Chlamydomonas ͉ Arabidopsis ͉ Calvin cycle ͉ enzyme light-activation ͉ thiol T hioredoxins (TRXs) are small ubiquitous disulfide proteins with a conserved active site WC(G͞P)PC that play key roles in redox signaling by oxidoreduction of disulfide bridges of various target proteins involved in a wide variety of functions (1). In plants, proteins of the TRX family are found in most subcellular compartments, but chloroplastic TRXs have been extensively studied because they are key regulators of photosynthesis. Under illumination, the photosynthetic electron-transfer chain reduces ferredoxin (Fd), which transfers electrons to acceptors, including TRXs through Fd-TRX reductase (FTR). Four types of TRXs (f, m, x, and y) are present in the chloroplast with, generally, several isoforms for each type (2). TRXs f and m are involved in the regulation of key carbon-fixation enzymes that are mostly inactive in the dark and activated by TRXs under illumination (3). Some of these enzymes, such as fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, strictly depend on TRXf. TRXf also appears to be the most efficient activator of other carbon-metabolism enzymes, with the exception of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. TRXs x and y, discovered more recently, are, rather, implicated in responses to oxidative stress because they are particularly efficient for the reduction of peroxiredoxins (4, 5). Moreover, recent studies suggest the existence of numerous other TRX targets for which the specificity toward TRX types remains to be determined (6-8).The thiol buffer glutathione (GSH) plays a key role in modulating plant stress responses (9-11), and work on animals has shown that GSH status can modulate protein activity through glutathionylation, a reversible posttranslational modification consisting of the formation of a mixed disulfide between the free thiol of a protein and GSH. This modification notably occurs in r...

In animal cells, many proteins have been shown to undergo glutathionylation under conditions of oxidative stress. By contrast, very little is known about this post‐translational modification in plants. In the present work, we showed, using mass spectrometry, that the recombinant chloroplast A4‐glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (A4‐GAPDH) from Arabidopsis thaliana is glutathionylated with either oxidized glutathione or reduced glutathione and H2O2. The formation of a mixed disulfide between glutathione and A4‐GAPDH resulted in the inhibition of enzyme activity. A4‐GAPDH was also inhibited by oxidants such as H2O2. However, the effect of glutathionylation was reversed by reductants, whereas oxidation resulted in irreversible enzyme inactivation. On the other hand, the major isoform of photosynthetic GAPDH of higher plants (i.e. the AnBn‐GAPDH isozyme in either A2B2 or A8B8 conformation) was sensitive to oxidants but did not seem to undergo glutathionylation significantly. GAPDH catalysis is based on Cys149 forming a covalent intermediate with the substrate 1,3‐bisphosphoglycerate. In the presence of 1,3‐bisphosphoglycerate, A4‐GAPDH was fully protected from either oxidation or glutathionylation. Site‐directed mutagenesis of Cys153, the only cysteine located in close proximity to the GAPDH active‐site Cys149, did not affect enzyme inhibition by glutathionylation or oxidation. Catalytic Cys149 is thus suggested to be the target of both glutathionylation and thiol oxidation. Glutathionylation could be an important mechanism of regulation and protection of chloroplast A4‐GAPDH from irreversible oxidation under stress.

Glutathionylation is the major form of S-thiolation in cells. This reversible redox post-translational modification consists of the formation of a mixed disulfide between a free thiol on a protein and a molecule of glutathione. This recently described modification, which is considered to occur under oxidative stress, can protect cysteine residues from irreversible oxidation, and alter positively or negatively the activity of diverse proteins. This modification and its targets have been mainly studied in non-photosynthetic organisms so far. We report here the first proteomic approach performed in vivo on photosynthetically competent cells, using the eukaryotic unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii with radiolabeled [35 S]cysteine to label the glutathione pool and diamide as oxidant. This method allowed the identification of 25 targets, mainly chloroplastic, involved in various metabolic processes. Several targets are related to photosynthesis, such as the Calvin cycle enzymes phosphoglycerate kinase and ribose-5-phosphate isomerase. A number of targets, such as chaperones and peroxiredoxins, are related to stress responses. The glutathionylation of HSP70B, chloroplastic 2-Cys peroxiredoxin and isocitrate lyase was confirmed in vitro on purified proteins and the targeted residues were identified.

Oxidants are widely considered as toxic molecules that cells have to scavenge and detoxify efficiently and continuously. However, emerging evidence suggests that these oxidants can play an important role in redox signaling, mainly through a set of reversible post-translational modifications of thiol residues on proteins. The most studied redox system in photosynthetic organisms is the thioredoxin (TRX) system, involved in the regulation of a growing number of target proteins via thiol/disulfide exchanges. In addition, recent studies suggest that glutaredoxins (GRX) could also play an important role in redox signaling especially by regulating protein glutathionylation, a post-translational modification whose importance begins to be recognized in mammals while much less is known in photosynthetic organisms. This review focuses on oxidants and redox signaling with particular emphasis on recent developments in the study of functions, regulation mechanisms and targets of TRX, GRX and glutathionylation. This review will also present the complex emerging interplay between these three components of redox-signaling networks.

SummaryChloroplast transformation in microalgae offers great promise for the production of proteins of pharmaceutical interest or for the development of novel biofuels. For many applications, high level expression of transgenes is desirable. We have transformed the chloroplast of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii with two genes, acrV and vapA, which encode antigens from the fish pathogen Aeromonas salmonicida. The promoters and 5¢ untranslated regions of four chloroplast genes were compared for their ability to drive expression of the bacterial genes. The highest levels of expression were obtained when they were placed under the control of the cis-acting elements from the psaA-exon1 gene. The expression of these chimeric genes was further increased when a nuclear mutation that affects a factor involved in psaA splicing was introduced in the genetic background of the chloroplast transformants. Accumulation of both the chimeric mRNAs and the recombinant proteins was dramatically increased, indicating that negative feedback loops limit the expression of chloroplast transgenes. Our results demonstrate the potential of manipulating anterograde signalling to alter negative regulatory feedback loops in the chloroplast and improve transgene expression.