Plant Physiol. (1995) 108: 411-418

Ascorbate Free Radical Reductase mRNA Levels Are lnduced by Wounding

Alexander A. Crantz', David A. Brummell*, and Alan B. Bennett

Mann Laboratory, Department of Vegetable Crops, University of California, Davis, California 9561 6

A cDNA clone encoding ascorbate free radical (AFR) reductase (EC 1.6.5.4) was isolated from tomato (Lycopersicon esculenfum Mill.) and its mRNA levels were analyzed. The cDNA encoded a deduced protein of 433 amino acids and possessed amino acid domains characteristic of flavin adenine dinucleotide- and NAD(P)H-binding proteins but did not possess typical eukaryotic targeting sequences, suggesting that it encodes a cytosolic form of AFR reductase. Low-stringency genomic DNA gel blot analysis in- dicated that a single nuclear gene encoded this enzyme. Total ascorbate contents were greatest in leaves, with decreasing amounts in stems and roots and relatively constant levels in all stages of fruit. AFR reductase activity was inversely correlated with total ascorbate content, whereas the relative abundance of AFR reductase mRNA was directly correlated with enzyme activity in tissues examined. AFR reductase mRNA abundance increased dra- matically in response to wounding, a treatment that is known to also induce ascorbate-dependent prolyl hydroxylation required for the accumulation of hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins. In addition, AFR reductase may contribute to maintaining levels of ascorbic acid for protection against wound-induced free radical-mediated dam- age. Collectively, the results suggest that AFR reductase activity is regulated at the leve1 of mRNA abundance by low ascorbate con- tents or by factors that promote ascorbate utilization.

Ascorbic acid plays essential roles in the metabolism of both plant (Chinoy, 1984) and animal (Padh, 1990; Sauber- lich, 1994) cells. Ascorbic acid is required for prolyl hy- droxylation during the biosynthesis of animal collagen and plant Hyp-rich glycoproteins, acts as an enzyme activator by maintaining prosthetic metal ions in the reduced form, and serves as a general reducing agent and scavenger of free radicals (Chinoy, 1984; Padh, 1990; Sauberlich, 1994). Oxygen free radicals resulting from metabolism can, if unquenched, propagate a chain reaction of free radical production (Elstner, 1982), leading to extensive degrada- tion of membrane lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, and Chl (Thompson et al., 1987). Ascorbate plays a major role in the prevention of peroxidative damage by scavenging hy- droxyl, superoxide, and organic free radicals and, as a consequence, produces its own free radical, AFR (also called monodehydroascorbate). AFR is relatively stable and reacts preferentially with itself (Bielski, 19821, thus preventing the propagation of free radical reactions.

Present address: Melvin Calvin Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.

In plant cells the production of activated oxygen species (0;- and H,OJ is counteracted by catalase and by anti- oxidants including ascorbate, glutathione, a-tocopherol, carotenoids, and flavonoids (Elstner, 1982). One of the major enzyme pathways for scavenging H,O, relies on ascorbate, during which ascorbate undergoes continua1 ox- idation and reduction (Law et al., 1983). Ascorbate perox- idase catalyzes the reduction of H,O, to water using the reducing power of ascorbate, in the process producing AFR (Yamazaki and Piette, 1961; Hossain et al., 1984). AFR can spontaneously disproportionate to ascorbic acid and dehy- droascorbate (Bielski et al., 1981), the latter being converted back to ascorbic acid by dehydroascorbate reductase using GSH as electron donor (Law et al., 1983). However, most AFR is directly reduced to ascorbic acid by the action of AFR reductase (monodehydroascorbate reductase, NADH AFR oxidoreductase, EC 1.6.5.4), using NADH or NADPH as electron donor (Hossain and Asada, 1985). By these mechanisms, ascorbate is maintained in its reduced form as a protectant against cellular oxidative degradation.

Ascorbic acid is found in high amounts in chloroplasts, because of the production of superoxide anion radicals (O;-) by photosynthesis and their dismutation by super- oxide dismutase to molecular oxygen and H,O, (Elstner, 1982). Ascorbic acid has also been implicated in plant de- toxification of ozone (Tanaka et al., 1985; Mehlhorn et al., 1986; Luwe et al., 1993) and of respiratory-produced H,O, during seed germination (Cakmak et al., 1993), in the pre- vention of peroxide damage in nitrogen-fixing root nodules (Dalton et al., 19931, in resistance to drought (Smirnoff and Colombe, 1988) and chilling (Schoner and Krause, 1990; Kuroda et al., 1991) injury, and in plant resistance to nem- atode worm infection (Arrigoni et al., 1979).

High levels of AFR reductase activity, which regenerates partially oxidized ascorbate to its active reduced form, are found in chloroplasts (Hossain et al., 1984), but activity is also found in mitochondria, in the cytosol, and in micro- some preparations and appears to be widely distributed among plant species and tissues (Arrigoni et al., 1981). The enzyme is a monomer and contains 1 mo1 of FAD per mo1 of enzyme (Hossain and Asada, 1985). When purified to homogeneity i,t has a molecular mass of 47 kD from cu- cumber fruit (Hossain and Asada, 1985) and 42 kD from potato tuber (Borraccino et al., 1986) and is present as isozymes of 39 and 40 kD in soybean root nodules (Dalton et al., 1992). AFR reductase has been cloned from cucumber

* Corresponding author; e-mail dabrummell8ucdavis. ucdavis.edu; fax 1-916-752-4554. Abbreviation: AFR, ascorbate free radical.

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41 2 Grantz et ai. Plant Physiol. Vol. 108, 1995

fruit (Sano and Asada, 1994) and pea (Murthy and Zilins- kas, 1994), but so far no information is available concerning the expression of the gene. We report the isolation of a gene encoding an AFR reductase cDNA from a genetically well- characterized and commercially important species, tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), and describe its expression in various tissues and in response to wounding.

MATERIALS A N D METHODS

Plant Material and Preparation of RNA

Tissues of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) cv T5 and cv Castlemart were collected from mature field-grown plants. Fresh fruit at defined ripening stages and vegetative tissues were used immediately for determination of ascor- bic acid and dehydroascorbate contents, whereas identical samples were frozen in liquid N, and stored at -80°C for subsequent assays of ascorbate free radical reductase activ- ity and preparation of RNA.

RNA was prepared from young vegetative tissues by powdering in liquid N, in a pestle and mortar, followed by blending with a Tissumizer homogenizer (Tekmar, Cinci- natti, OH) using the method of Chomczynski and Sacchi (1987), except that the guanidine thiocyanate concentration was increased to 5 M and RNA was subsequently purified by precipitation in 2 M LiC1. RNA was prepared from frozen fruit pericarp tissue by powdering in a coffee grinder in the presence of a chip of dry ice, homogenizing in 1 M Tris-HC1, pH 9:phenol:chloroform (2:1:1, by vol- ume), precipitating in 2 M LiC1, and removing carbohy- drate by two precipitations with 33% (v/v) ethanol (Lash- brook et al., 1994). RNA prepared by either method was quantified by measuring AZ6, and was relatively free from contaminating proteins and carbohydrate as shown by the A,,,/A,,, (typically >1.7) and A,,,/A,,, (typically B2.0) ratios.

RNA from control and wounded leaf, stem, green fruit, and pink fruit was a generous gift of Dr. Jiirg Oetiker. RNA was prepared from greenhouse-grown fruit pericarp tissue (cv Caruso) that had been either frozen immediately in liquid N, or sliced into 0.5-cm cubes, incubated on filter paper moistened with 50 mM phosphate buffer, pH 7.0, 50 pg mL-’ chloramphenicol at 25°C for 6 h, and then frozen in liquid N, (Lincoln et al., 1993). Leaf and stem tissue (cv VF36) were obtained from 80-cm-tall, greenhouse-grown plants and either frozen immediately in liquid N, or wounded by slicing into 5-mm squares or 2- to 5-mm pieces, respectively, and then incubated as above for 5.5 h before preparation of RNA using the method of Lincoln et al. (1993). Wounded root tissue (cv Castlemart) was pre- pared from a plant grown in a pot in the greenhouse, from which the soil was carefully washed away in a stream of water. Half of the roots were frozen immediately in liquid N,, and the other half was wounded for 5.5 h as described for stem tissue. RNA was extracted using the guanidine thiocyanate method described above.

PCR Amplification

AI1 nucleic acid techniques were as described by Sam- brook et al. (1989) unless otherwise noted. An alignment of the monodehydroascorbate reductase sequence from cu- cumber (Sano and Asada, 1994) with a partia1 cDNA se- quence in the rice expressed sequence tag library (GenBank accession No. D24305) that was highly homologous to cu- cumber monodehydroascorbate reductase was used to identify conserved amino acid domains for construction of degenerate PCR primers. The 5’ primer [5’-CCIGA(AG)C- CITGGTG(CT)ATGCC-3’] corresponded to amino acids 194 to 200 and the 3’ primer [5’-TT(AGT)ATNCCNC- C(CT)TT(CT)TC(CT)TC3’1 corresponded to amino acids 274 to 280 of the tomato sequence, where I = inosine and N = a11 four nucleotides.

Tomato leaf total RNA (2 pg) was denatured at 65°C for 5 min and then converted to cDNA by incubation at 37°C for 30 min with 100 pmol of random hexamers (Pharma- cia), 1 mM DTT, 1 mM deoxyribonucleotide triphos- phates, and 100 units of Moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase (BRL) in first-strand reaction buffer mix (BRL). The PCR was carried out in final volumes of 50 pL using 1.0 unit of AmpliTaq (Perkin-Elmer), 200 p~ deoxyribonucleotide triphosphates, 2 mM MgCl,, and 10 PM primers with 0.5 pg of cDNA derived from tomato leaf total RNA as template. Amplifications were for 40 cycles, each consisting of 1 min at 94”C, 1.5 min at 51”C, and 1 min at 72°C. The resulting 261-bp DNA fragment was gel purified and cloned into pCR-Script (Stratagene) following the manufacturer’s instructions. The DNA se- quence was determined with universal primers using 35S- dATP (NEN) and the Sequenase, version 2.0, sequencing kit (United States Biochemical) according to the manufac- turer’s instructions.

Screening a cDNA Library

Colonies (80,000) of a red ripe tomato fruit cDNA library in the vector pARC7 (DellaPenna et al., 1986) were grown on nitrocellulose filters (Schleicher & Schuell) and replica colony filters were subsequently lifted as described by Sambrook et al. (1989). The 261-bp PCR product described above was radioactively labeled by random hexamer prim- ing using [ ( U - ~ ~ P I ~ A T P (3000 Ci mmol-’, NEN) and Kle- now DNA polymerase (Pharmacia). Probe (approximately 7 x 108 dpm pg-’) was purified from unincorporated nucleotides by centrifugation through a spin column of Sephadex G-50 (Pharmacia) and then used for colony screening. Hybridization was carried out in 50% (v/v) formamide, 6X SSPE, 5X Denhardt’s reagent, 0.5% (w/v) SDS, 100 p g mL-’ denatured salmon sperm DNA at 38”C, where 1 X SSPE = 150 mM NaC1, 10 mM Na-phosphate, 1 mM EDTA, pH 7.4. Filters were washed three times in 6X SSC, 0.1% SDS at room temperature, followed by three high-stringency washes in 0.5X SSC, 0.5% SDS at 56”C, where 1 X SSC = 150 mM NaC1, 15 mM Na-citrate, pH 7.0. A secondary screen yielded three cDNAs, of approximately 1.8, 1.7, and 0.85 kb. Inserts were subcloned from the library vector into pBluescript I1 SK+ plasmid (Stratagene)

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Ascorbate Free Radical Reductase 1s lnduced by Wounding 41 3

using the XbaI restriction site. The largest clone was com- pletely sequenced on both strands using universal and a total of 14 specific interna1 primers synthesized by Genset Corp. (La Jolla, CA).

Southern Analysis

Genomic DNA was prepared from young tomato leaves using the method of Chetelat and DeVerna (19911, and 10-pg samples were digested with excess amounts of EcoRI, EcoRV, HindIII, or BamHI (New England Biolabs). Restriction fragments were subjected to electrophoresis through a 0.8% (w/v) agarose gel and then transferred to Hybond-N hybridization membrane (Amersham). The re- sulting blot was hybridized with radiolabeled probe, pre- pared as described above for colony screening, in 50% formamide, 6X SSPE, 5X Denhardt's reagent, 0.5% SDS, 100 pg mL-' denatured salmon sperm DNA at 38°C (Tm -27°C) for 17 h. The blot was washed three times in 6X SSC, 0.1% SDS at room temperature, followed by three high-stringency washes in 0.5X SSC, 0.5% SDS at 55°C (Tm -24'0, and then exposed to preflashed X-Omat AR film (Kodak) with an intensifying screen at -80°C for 2 d.

Northern Analysis

Tomato stem total RNA (20 pg) was subjected to electro- phoresis through a 1.2% agarose, 10% (v/v) formaldehyde denaturing gel and then transferred to Hybond-N mem- brane. The blot was hybridized and washed exactly as for the Southern blot described above and exposed to film for 6 d.

Determination of Ascorbic Acid and Total Ascorbate

Assays for the reduced and oxidized species of ascorbic acid (ascorbic acid and dehydroascorbate, respectively) were performed using HPLC, essentially as described by Graham and Annette (1992). Fresh vegetative tissue or fruit pericarp (10 g, composed of 3.33 g from each of three representative samples) was homogenized for 3 min in 100 mL of 62.5 mM metaphosphoric acid (Aldrich) using a bottom-driven homogenizer. The volume was brought to 150 mL with metaphosphoric acid solution, the extracts were centrifuged at 6500g for 15 min at 4"C, and then the supernatants were filtered through Miracloth (Calbio- chem). Samples for assays were filtered through 0.45-pm cellulose acetate filters (Corning Glass, Corning, NY) prior to use. Ascorbic acid was determined directly from these extracts. Total ascorbate (ascorbic acid plus dehydroascor- bate) was estimated in 250-pL aliquots reduced by adding 42 pL of 30 p~ dl-homocysteine (Aldrich) and then ad- justed to pH 6.8 to 7.0 by slow addition of 125 pL of 2.6 M K,HPO,. Reduction was stopped after 30 min by addition of 333 pL of 6.25 M metaphosphoric acid. Samples (20 pL) were injected onto a 300- X 7.8-mm Aminex HPX-87H column (Bio-Rad) attached to an LDC Constametric IIIG pump (Milton Roy, Rochester, NY), operated at room tem- perature and using 4.5 mM H,SO, as eluant at a flow rate of 0.5 mL min-'. Ascorbic acid was monitored at 245 nm (retention time 11.4 min) with an SPD-6AV spectrophoto-

metric detector (Shimadzu, Columbia, MD) attached to a chart recorder and CR601 integrator (Shimadzu). Peaks were converted to concentrations by using dilutions of stock ascorbic acid to construct a standard curve (Graham and Annette, 1992). Dehydroascorbate content was calcu- lated by subtraction of ascorbic acid values from those of total ascorbate.

Assay for Ascorbate Free Radical Reductase Activity

Frozen vegetative tissue or fruit pericarp (3 g, composed of 1 g from each of three representative samples) was powdered in liquid N, using a pestle and mortar and then homogenized at 0°C for 4 min in 10 mL of 0.2 M potassium phosphate, pH 7.8, 1 mM EDTA, 5 mM MgCl,, 0.1% (w/v) BSA, 10 mM 2-mercaptoethanol, 0.005% (v/v) Triton X-100 using a Tekmar homogenizer. Extracts were centrifuged at full speed in a bench-top centrifuge for 30 min at O"C, the supernatants were filtered through Miracloth, and 15-pL aliquots were assayed in a final reaction volume of 1 mL. AFR reductase activity was determined spectrophotometri- cally by following the decrease in A340 due to NADH oxidation caused by AFR generated from ascorbic acid with ascorbate oxidase (Hossain et al., 1984).

Protein was estimated using a protein assay dye reagent kit (Bio-Rad) with BSA as a standard.

RNase Protection Assays

Radiolabeled RNA probe (approximately 8 X 10' dpm pg-') was prepared by in vitro transcription using as template the 261-bp PCR product subcloned into pCR- Script described above, which had previously been linear- ized with NotI and gel purified. Reactions were performed in the presence of 0.5 mM ATP, CTP, and GTP, 5.25 p~ UTP, 50 pCi of [cI-~'P]UTP (3000 Ci mmol-', NEN), and T7 RNA polymerase (Epicentre, Madison, WI). In addition, a tritiated sense transcript (approximately 1 X 107 dpm pg-') was prepared from the linearized full-length clone in pBluescript 11, using [5,6-3HlUTP (12.7 Ci mmol-', NEN) and the appropriate RNA polymerase, for use in construc- tion of a standard curve. Aliquots of total RNA prepara- tions (5 pg) or of tritiated sense transcript were hybridized with the antisense radiolabeled riboprobe. RNase protec- tion assays were performed using the RPA I1 kit (Ambion, Austin, TX) according to the manufacturer's instructions, except that gels were fixed in 10% acetic acid, 15% ethanol for 1 h, and dried onto paper before they were exposed to preflashed X-Omat AR film with an intensifying screen at -80°C for 1 to 4 d. Radioactivity in digested samples was estimated by exposing the dried gels to phosphorimager plates, which were scanned with a Fujix BAS 1000 phos- phorimager (Fuji Medical Systems, Stamford, CT). Analysis of resulting scans was performed using Fujix MacBAS soft- ware (Fuji), and relative radioactivities were converted to percentage mRNA using the standard curve and assuming that mRNA was 3% of total RNA.

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41 4

S F K Y V I V G G G V S A G Y A A R E F

Grantz et ai. Plant Physiol. Vol. 108,

RESULTS

The longest AFR reductase cDNA clone resulting from the library screen contained 1709 bp plus a poly(A) tail (Fig. 1). An AT-rich region preceded an open reading frame starting with Met at base 49 and ending with a stop codon at base 1485. The nucleotides surrounding the ATG (TCAT- C A a G C G ) were conserved in 9 of 12 bases with the consensus sequence (TAAACAaGCT) for plant transla- tion initiation sites (Joshi, 1987). The open reading frame consisted of 1299 bp and was interrupted by an intron of 138 bp located after base 643 (base 595 numbering from the ATG translation start site). The intron, which disrupted a Met codon, possessed consensus splice junctions of GT at the 5' end and AG at the 3' end (Brown, 1986). Presumably this cDNA was derived from a partially processed heter- ogenous nuclear RNA, and this was confirmed by sequenc- ing the equivalent region of the second-longest clone re- sulting from the library screen, which lacked this intron. An AT-rich 3' flanking region of 225 bp separated the final amino acid from the beginning of the poly(A) tail. A puta- tive polyadenylation signal (AATAAT) was located 27 bp upstream from the polyadenylation start site (Dean et al., 1986).

The open reading frame predicted a protein of 433 amino acids showing high homologies to the deduced AFR reduc- tase protein sequences from cucumber (Sano and Asada, 1994) and pea (Murthy and Zilinskas, 19941, with amino acid identities of 82.4 and 79.4%, respectively. The protein possessed a predicted molecular mass of 47 kD, similar to that of the enzymes purified from cucumber fruit (47 kD; Hossain and Asada, 19851, potato tuber (42 kD; Borraccino et al., 1986), and soybean root nodules (39 and 40 kD; Dalton et al., 1992). The predicted protein did not appear to possess eukaryotic targeting sequences, suggesting a cyto- solic cellular localization.

Two consensus sequences (fingerprints) involved in the binding of the ADP moiety of FAD or NAD(P)H were detected (Fig. 1). Each fingerprint consists of a conserved, 18-amino acid domain separated by a loop in the protein from another conserved, 5-amino acid domain (Wierenga et al., 1986; Eggink et al., 1990). It is thought that the fingerprint at the N terminus of the protein is involved in the binding of FAD, whereas the second site, located in the middle of the protein, is involved in the binding of NADH or NADPH (Eggink et al., 1990). In addition, a conserved 11-amino acid domain involved in the binding of the flavin moiety of FAD (Eggink et al., 1990) was present, beginning at Thr287 (Fig. 1).

Southern analysis of genomic DNA that had been di- gested with EcoRI, EcoRV, HindIII, or BamHI exhibited only a single band when probed at low stringency with the 261-bp PCR product of AF% reductase (Fig. 2A). This indi- cates the presence of a single genomic copy of this AFR reductase gene in tomato.

A northern blot of tomato stem total RNA probed with the 261-bp PCR product of AFR reductase showed a single band of approximately 1.7 kb (Fig. 2B). The AFR reductase cDNA clone was 1570 bp without the intron, suggesting the addition of about 150 bases of poly(A) to the AFR reductase

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TTGAGAGAAATCGATGATGCTGATWCTTGTGGAAGCATTALAAGCTAAGAAAAATGGT L R E I D D A D Q L V E A L K A K K N G

AAAGCPGTTGTTCITGOCGGAGGGTACATCGGTCTCGAGCTTAGECTGTACTGAGACTG K A V V V G G G Y I G L E L S A V L R L

AACAACATTGAAGTCAATATGGTTTACCCAGAACCATGGTG3qtaagtaaattgcgttt N N I E V N M V Y P E P W C

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TGCCTCGGCTTTTtACAGAaATAGCTGCGTTCTATGAAGGTTATTATX+L4ACAAGG M P R L F T E G I A A F Y E G Y Y K N K

GAGTCAATATTATCAADGGTACAGTGGCTGTTCXGTTTGATACCCATCCAAATGGAGAGG G V N I I K G T V A V G F D T H P N G E

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TTAAGACAGATGCGTTCTTCARAACAAGTCTACCTGATGTATATCCTGTGGGTGATGTTG I K T D A F F K T S V P D V Y A V G D V

CCACTPTTCCTTTGRARATGTACAATGAGATTAGAAGAGTTGAACATGTTGAWATTCTC A T F P L K M Y N E I R R V E H V D H S

aCAAATCTGCTGAGCA~TG'CCAAGGCAATATTTGCCAGTGA~G'CCTGTCG R K S A E Q A V K A I F A S E Q G K S V

ATGAATATGACTRCCTTCCATACTTCTATTCCCGCGCCTTCGATTTGTCTTGQ2+ATTCT D E Y D Y L P Y F Y S R A F D L S W Q F

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GGTCACCTGAACAGAGAAW~AATTGCTAAGGTTGCAAAGGTTCPACCCCCTGCTACCT G S P E E N K A I A K V A K V Q P P A T

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1995

60 4

120 24

180 44

240 64

300 84

3 60 104

420 124

480 144

540 164

600 184

660 198

720 780

840 218

900 238

960 258

1020 278

1080 298

1140 318

1200 338

1260 358

1320 378

1380 398

1440 418

1500 433

1560 1620 1680 1709

Figure 1. Nucleotide sequence of the cDNA of AFR reductase from tomato. Nucleotides encoding deduced amino acids are shown in uppercase and an intron and 5 ' and 3' flanking regions are shown in lowercase. The deduced amino acid sequence is shown below, and nucleotides and amino acids are numbered separately on the right. A putative polyadenylation sequence (AATAAT) is single underlined. Amino acid domains involved in the binding of the ADP moiety of FAD and NAD(P)H (Wierenga et al., 1986; Eggink et al., 1990) are boxed, and a conserved 11-amino acid domain important in binding of the flavin moiety of FAD (Eggink et al., 1990) is double underlined.

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Ascorbate Free Radical Reductase Is Induced by Wounding 415

mRNA. The size of the APR reductase mRNA from cucum-ber seedling was also about 1.7 kb (Sano and Asada, 1994).

Total ascorbate (ascorbic acid plus dehydroascorbate)contents were very high in leaf tissue (>50 mg per 100 gfresh weight), lower in stem tissue, and very low in roots(Fig. 3A). Root tissue contained only about 3 mg of ascor-bate per 100 g fresh weight, and a large proportion of this(about 40%) was in the oxidized dehydroascorbate form. Inleaves and stems the proportion of total ascorbate presentas dehydroascorbate was much lower, about 15 and 2%,respectively. Fruit pericarp tissue contained a relativelyconstant amount of total ascorbate throughout fruit devel-opment and ripening. These levels, of approximately 20 mgper 100 g fresh weight, increased slightly from early devel-opment stages to peak at approximately the light-red stagebefore declining as fruit became overripe. Fruit tissue pos-sessed ascorbate entirely as ascorbic acid, with dehy-droascorbate present below the level of detection.

APR reductase activity showed an inverse correlationwith the contents of total ascorbate (Fig. 3, A and B). APRreductase activity was low in leaves, where amounts oftotal ascorbate were high, and high in stems and roots,where total ascorbate contents were low. In fruit APRreductase activity was higher in early developmentalstages, declined as fruits ripened and ascorbate contentsincreased, and then increased at the overripe stage whenascorbate levels declined. APR reductase mRNA abun-dance (Fig. 3C) correlated well with APR reductase activityin vegetative tissue and during fruit ripening. However,during the early stages of fruit growth relatively low levels

1.02 —

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TissueFigure 3. Total ascorbate, APR reductase activity, and APR reductasemRNA abundance in tomato tissues. A, Total ascorbate contents.Ascorbic acid was determined using an ion exclusion column withdetection at 245 nm. Dehydroascorbate was determined after reduc-tion to ascorbic acid. B, APR reductase activity, measured by follow-ing the oxidation of NADH at 340 nm due to APR generated withascorbate oxidase. C, APR reductase mRNA abundance, estimatedagainst a standard curve using RNase protection assays. 1C, Imma-ture green; MG, mature green; BR, breaker; TU, turning; PK, pink; LR,light red; RR, red ripe; OR, overripe.

of APR reductase mRNA were detected and yet moderateenzyme activity was evident.

Wounding of both vegetative and fruit tissues for 5.5 to6 h resulted in a substantial increase in the abundance ofAPR reductase mRNA (Fig. 4). Increases of between 3- and8-fold relative to unwounded controls were detected, ex-cept in mature green fruit, in which a 15-fold increase wasobserved. After the tissues were wounded, levels of APRreductase mRNA approached 0.1% of mRNA in roots andin pink fruit.

Figure 2. DNA and RNA gel blot analysis. A, Southern blot of tomatogenomic DNA (10 ̂ g) digested with either fcoRI, FcoRV, H/ndlll, orSamHI and probed with a 32P-labeled 261-base fragment of tomatoAPR reductase. Hybridization conditions were 50% formamide, 0.9M NaCI (6X SSPE) at 38°C, with a final wash at 0.075 M NaCI (0.5XSSC) at 56°C. B, Northern blot of 20 jiig of total RNA from tomatostem tissue probed, hybridized, and washed as in A.

DISCUSSION

The cloning, characterization, and expression analysis ofa tomato APR reductase cDNA have been described, andcorrelations between total ascorbate, oxidized ascorbate,APR reductase activity and APR reductase mRNA abun-dance were examined in a variety of vegetative and fruittissues. The absence of a typical transit peptide or signalsequence for targeting to the ER in the tomato deduced www.plantphysiol.orgon June 6, 2020 - Published by Downloaded from

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416 Grantz et al. Plant Physiol. Vol. 108, 1995

W I W I W I W I W; Leaf Stem Root MG PK

TissueFigure 4. Effect of wounding on APR reductase mRNA abundance.Tissues were either intact (I) or wounded (W) by slicing with a razorblade and incubating for 5.5 h (vegetative tissues) or 6 h (fruit). TotalRNA was hybridized with a 32P-labeled APR reductase probe forassay by RNase protection. MG, Mature green fruit; PK, pink fruit.

amino acid sequence (Fig. 1) suggests that the cDNA en-codes a cytosolic enzyme. The N-terminal amino acid se-quence of the purified APR reductase isozyme II fromsoybean root nodules was determined by Edman degrada-tion (Dalton et al., 1992), and the first 10 amino acids(AKTFKYIILG) show a strong homology with amino acids2 to 11 encoded by the tomato, cucumber, and pea cDNAsequences. This finding confirms that the designated ATGtriplet is the start codon and suggests that the N-termi-nal Met is removed posttranslationally in soybean rootnodules.

Low-stringency Southern analysis suggested the exis-tence of a single genomic gene for APR reductase in tomato(Fig. 2A). However, two isozymes of APR reductase havebeen detected in soybean root nodules (Dalton et al., 1992),and in cucumber a comparison of the sequences of proteo-lytic fragments of APR reductase purified from fruit with acDNA clone derived from seedlings indicated the presenceof more than one isozyme (Sano and Asada, 1994). APRreductase is found in the chloroplast stroma in solubleform (Hossain et al., 1984; Yamauchi et al., 1984) but alsohas been detected in the cytosol, in mitochondria and onmicrosomal membrane preparations (Arrigoni et al., 1981;Yamauchi et al., 1984), on glyoxysomal membranes (Bow-ditch and Donaldson, 1990), and in the cell wall (Dalton etal., 1993). The existence of multiple isoforms of APR reduc-tase, in multiple cellular locations, suggests that there maybe additional genes encoding APR reductase isoforms intomato. The deduced protein sequences of tomato, cucum-ber, and pea cDNA clones possess high homology (80%identity), but the existence of other APR reductase genestoo divergent to cross-hybridize by Southern analysis can-not be discounted.

Total ascorbate was found at high levels in leaves (Fig.3A), consistent with the previous observation that chloro-plasts contain substantial amounts of ascorbate (Foyer etal., 1983). Ascorbic acid content in developing fruit peaked

at the light-red stage before full color was reached, aspreviously shown (Malewski and Markakis, 1971). Leaftissue contained a significant proportion of total ascorbateas dehydroascorbate, presumably because of the oxidativestresses resulting from photosynthesis. Roots possessedlow amounts of total ascorbate, but a high proportion ofthis was present as dehydroascorbate.

APR reductase enzyme activity was inversely correlatedwith total ascorbate contents, with the highest enzymeactivity and lowest ascorbate content being observed inroots. It is possible that enzyme levels are regulated byascorbate demand, such that AFR reductase activity in-creases in tissues with high rates of ascorbate utilization.This may be particularly important when available pools oftotal ascorbate are low, as in roots. In addition, there was aclose correlation between AFR reductase enzyme activityand AFR reductase mRNA abundance. Although the cor-relation was not perfect, it suggests that AFR reductaseenzyme activity is regulated, at least in part, at the level ofmRNA abundance.

The possibility that AFR reductase activity levels areregulated by ascorbate demand was tested by subjectingtomato tissues to mechanical wounding. This treatmentcauses the increased synthesis of Hyp-rich cell wall glyco-proteins (Chrispeels et al., 1974), which are formed by theposttranslational hydroxylation of peptidyl Pro by prolylhydroxylase in a reaction utilizing ascorbic acid as a reduc-ing agent (De Gara et al., 1991). Wounding may thus leadto an increased demand for ascorbic acid. In all tissuesexamined, mechanical wounding triggered a dramatic ac-cumulation of AFR reductase mRNA within 6 h (Fig. 4).The abundance of mRNA species encoding Hyp-rich gly-coproteins also increased substantially in response towounding, with certain transcripts increasing slowly overseveral hours and others showing maximal induction asrapidly as 1.5 h after wounding (Sauer et al., 1990).

In addition to increasing ascorbate demand for Pro hy-droxylation, it is thought that wounding results in theinitiation of lipid peroxidation by lipoxygenase, inducing aself-perpetuating wave of free radicals that cause rapidmembrane deterioration (Thompson et al., 1987). Increasedsynthesis of ascorbate and induction of AFR reductase mayoccur in adjacent, nonwounded cells to prevent the spreadof damaging free radicals and to localize necrosis to woundor infection sites. Increases in ascorbic acid content and inAFR reductase activity have been noted in response to avariety of plant stresses, including strong illumination inwheat leaves (Mishra et al., 1993), SO2 and O3 in coniferneedles (Mehlhorn et al., 1986), cold acclimation in spinachleaves (Schoner and Krause, 1990), drought in grasses(Smirnoff and Colombe, 1988), and increases in oxygentension in soybean nodules (Dalton et al., 1991) and sub-merged rice seedlings (Ushimaru et al., 1992).

The isolation of a cDNA clone encoding AFR reductasefrom tomato opens up the possibility of modifying ascorbicacid levels in a crop species. Several species of animals,including humans, have lost the ability to synthesize ascor-bic acid from Glc (Padh, 1990) and must rely on dietarysources. The lack of detectable oxidized ascorbate in to-

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Ascorbate Free Radical Reductase 1s lnduced by Wounding 41 7

mato fruit (Fig. 3A) suggests that overexpression of AFR reductase in transgenic plants is unlikely to result in ele- vated fruit ascorbic acid contents. However, a more effec- tive ascorbic acid reduction system has been shown to confer improved tolerance to ozone (Tanaka et al., 1985; Luwe et al., 1993) and chilling injury (Schoner and Krause, 1990; Kuroda et al., 1991) and may contribute to drought resistance (Smirnoff and Colombe, 1988). Furthermore, a correlation among high ascorbic acid content, AFR reduc- tase activity, and nematode resistance in tomato plants has been reported (Arrigoni et al., 1979, 1981). It would be worthwhile to examine tomato AFR reductase gene expres- sion in response to nematode infection and possible effects on nematode resistance in transgenic plants overexpressing AFR reductase.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the following for generous gifts of RNA preparations: Dr. Jiirg Oetiker (control and wounded leaf, stem, fruit), Dr. Car- men Catala (leaf, stem), and Dr. Coralie C. Lashbrook (overripe fruit). We are indebted to Dr. Sham Goyal for the provision of laboratory facilities for ascorbate determinations and Drs. Ahmed A.B. Hafez, Larry B. Smart, Jack Presley, and David J. Meyer for useful discussions.

Received November 10, 1994; accepted January 28, 1995. Copyright Clearance Center: 0032-0889/95/108/0411/08. The GenBank accession number for the sequence reported in this

article is L41345.

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