RNA gel hybridization showed that the expression of monodehydroascorbate reductase (MDHAR) in the wild type (WT) tomato was decreased firstly and then increased under salt- and polyethylene glycol (PEG)-induced osmotic stress, and the maximum level was observed after treatment for 12 h. WT, sense transgenic and antisense transgenic tomato plants were used to analyze the antioxidative ability to cope with osmotic stresses. After salt stress, the fresh mass (FM) and height of sense transgenic lines were greater than those of antisense lines and WT plants. Under salt and PEG treatments, sense transgenic plants showed a lower level of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and malondialdehyde (MDA), a higher net photosynthetic rate (PN), and the maximal photochemical efficiency of PSII (Fv/Fm) compared with WT and antisense transgenic plants. Moreover, sense lines maintained higher ascorbate peroxidase (APX) activity than WT and antisense plants under salt- and PEG-induced osmotic stress. These results indicate that chloroplastic MDHAR plays an important role in alleviating photoinhibition of PSII by elevating ascorbate (AsA) level under salt- and PEG-induced osmotic stress., F. Li ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje bibliografii
A crop legume Vigna unguiculata L. (Walp.) and a wild legume Crotalaria juncea L. were evaluated for their relative responses to the oxidative stress injury induced by various doses of UV-B radiation (UV-B, 280-315 nm; 0, 1.0, 1.4, 4.7, and 6.0 kJ m-2 d-1). A dose-dependent damage in lipid peroxidation was determined as an index of membrane injury caused by UV-B. The impact was significantly higher in V. unguiculata than in C. juncea. The specific activities of superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase, monodehydroascorbate reductase, and dehydroascorbate reductase increased directly proportional to UV-B doses. However, the activities of these enzymes were significantly higher in V. unguiculata than in C. juncea indicating that V. unguiculata was inflicted with more severe oxidative stress injury under UV-B. In C. juncea the glutathione reductase and ascorbate oxidase activities were 35 and 40 % greater than in V. unguiculata, respectively. Further, the non-enzymatic antioxidants ascorbate and glutathione, and their reduced/oxidizes ratios in C. juncea were much greater than V. unguiculata indicating C. juncea has an inherently greater antioxidative potential than V. unguiculata. Thus C. juncea is better adapted to oxidative stress than V. unguiculata by means of efficient cellular antioxidant mechanisms helping to combat the photooxidative stress injury elicited by UV-B.