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BIOCHEMICAL PROCESSES AND MACROMOLECULAR STRUCTURES

Generation of Hydrogen Peroxide in Chloroplasts of Arabidopsis Overexpressing Glycolate Oxidase as an Inducible System to Study Oxidative Stress^1,[W]

Botanisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, 50931 Cologne, Germany (H.F., U.-I.F., V.G.M.); and Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, S2002LRK Rosario, Argentina (T.E.S., E.M.V.)

Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) overexpressing glycolate oxidase (GO) in chloroplasts accumulates both hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and glyoxylate. GO-overexpressing lines (GO plants) grown at 75 µmol quanta m^–2 s^–1 show retarded development, yellowish rosettes, and impaired photosynthetic performance, while at 30 µmol quanta m^–2 s^–1, this phenotype virtually disappears. The GO plants develop oxidative stress lesions under photorespiratory conditions but grow like wild-type plants under nonphotorespiratory conditions. GO plants coexpressing enzymes that further metabolize glyoxylate but still accumulate H₂O₂ show all features of the GO phenotype, indicating that H₂O₂ is responsible for the GO phenotype. The GO plants can complete their life cycle, showing that they are able to adapt to the stress conditions imposed by the accumulation of H₂O₂ during the light period. Moreover, the data demonstrate that a response to oxidative stress is installed, with increased expression and/or activity of known oxidative stress-responsive components. Hence, the GO plants are an ideal noninvasive model system in which to study the effects of H₂O₂ directly in the chloroplasts, because H₂O₂ accumulation is inducible and sustained perturbations can reproducibly be provoked by exposing the plants to different ambient conditions.

² These authors contributed equally to the article.

The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Verónica G. Maurino (v.maurino{at}uni-koeln.de).

^[W] The online version of this article contains Web-only data.

www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.108.126789

^* Corresponding author; e-mail v.maurino{at}uni-koeln.de.

Received July 22, 2008; accepted August 4, 2008; published August 6, 2008.